Linguaphiles

The Oxford Etymologic Dictionary (OED) considers Ego / I as if it were a self-standing word developed within the Germanic and 'Indo-European' languages with a mere meaning of 'I / me / self, myself':[Spoiler (click to open)]

I (pron.)
12c., a shortening of Old English ic, the first person singular nominative pronoun, from Proto-Germanic *ek (source also of Old Frisian ik, Old Norse ek, Norwegian eg, Danish jeg, Old High German ih, German ich, Gothic ik), from PIE *eg- "I," nominative form of the first person singular pronoun (source also of Sanskrit aham, Hittite uk, Latin ego (source of French Je), Greek ego, Russian ja, Lithuanian aš).
Reduced to i by mid-12c. in northern England, later everywhere; the form ich or ik, especially before vowels, lingered in northern England until c. 1400 and survived in southern dialects until 18c. It began to be capitalized mid-13c. to mark it as a distinct word and avoid misreading in handwritten manuscripts.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/I

ego (n.) by 1707, in metaphysics, "the self; that which feels, acts, or thinks," from Latin ego "I" (cognate with Old English ic; see I); its use is implied in egoity.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/ego

местоим., укр. я, др.-русск. язъ, я (и то и другое – в Мстислав. грам. 1130 г.; см. Обнорский – Бархударов I, 33), ц.-сл. азъ ἐγώ, реже ѩзъ (см. Дильс, Aksl. Gr. 77), болг. аз, яз (Младенов 702), сербохорв. jа̑, словен. jàz, jâ, чеш. já, др.-чеш. jáz (совр. чеш. форма – с начала ХIV в.), слвц. jа, др.-пол. jaz, пол., в.-луж., н.-луж. jа, полаб. joz, jо.
Праслав. *аzъ отличается своим вокализмом от родственных форм, ср. др.-лит. еš, лит. àš, лтш. еs, др.-прус. еs, аs, др.-инд. ahám, авест. azǝm, др.-перс. аdаm, арм. еs, венет. еχо, гр. ἐγώ, лат. еgо, гот. ik "я". Наряду с и.-е. *еǵ- (гр., лат., герм.), существовало и.-е. диал. *eǵh- (др.-инд., венет.). Недоказанной является гипотеза о существовании *ō̆go наряду с *еgō на основе слав. аzъ и хетт. uk, ug "я" (Мейе – Эрну 342 и сл.; см. Вальде – Гофм. I, 395 и сл.). Не объяснена еще достоверно утрата конечного -z в слав.; весьма невероятно, чтобы она совершилась по аналогии местоим. tу (напр., Ягич, AfslPh 23, 543; Голуб – Копечный 147), а также чтобы долгота начального гласного была обусловлена долготой гласного в tу (Бругман у Бернекера, см. ниже). Более удачна попытка объяснения аzъ из сочетания а ězъ (Бернекер I, 35; Бругман, Grdr. 2, 2, 382), но см. против этого Кнутссон, ZfslPh 12, 96 и сл. По мнению Зубатого (LF 36, 345 и сл.), в этом а- представлена усилит. част. *ā, ср. др.-инд. ād, авест. āt̃, ср. также др.-инд. межд. ḗt "смотри, глядь!" из ā и id; Педерсен (KZ 38, 317) видит здесь влияние окончания 1 л. ед. ч. -ō; сомнения по этому поводу см. у Бернекера (I, 35). Для объяснения -z привлекают законы сандхи (Сольмсен, KZ 29, 79); ср. Бернекер, там же; И. Шмидт, KZ 36, 408 и сл.; Вакернагель – Дебруннер 3, 454 и сл.
http://www.classes.ru/all-russian/russian-dictionary-Vasmer-term-17126.htm

ich (Ger.), Εγώ [ego] (Gr.), ego (Lat.), io (Ital.), yo (Sp.), I (Eng.), jag (Sw.), я [ja] (Slavic)...

However, should one look beyond the hypothetic *constructions, established by the German philologists in the 19th Century, one would see an obvious Nostratic relation of the above words with the meaning of ' I ' to the following words with the meaning of ' 1 (one)':

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The “beard” sticking out of the Egyptian pharaohs' chins is strikingly reminiscent of poturu, a cone-shaped “lip plug” made of bone or wood and inserted through the lower lip of everyone in a small Amazonian Indian tribe (self-name: Zo'é - 'we','us'- as opposed to non-Indians, enemies; external name - Poturu, in honor of the distinguishing attribute of Zoe; the tribe counts to only 160 people, and contacts with the tribe were only established in 1987); poturu is inserted when a child reaches the age of 7-9 years (which is one of the most important ceremonies, and a rite of passage for children); poturu is gradually enlarged throughout one's life; most adults wear poturu of approx. 18 cm in length and 2.5 cm in width: https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/zoe .

Most of the South American Indians do not have beard and other face hair. Poturu for Zo'é likely serves as a 'substitute' of what they do not have, but have seen on some foreign teachers long time ago - and wished to have, too.

And - the Egyptian pharaos seem to have belonged to the same beardless race as the Indians (also having the very same distinct face characters)!

And what else is the POTURU other than Ital. POTERE, Port., Sp. PODER - the POWER ?!

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The Mexican band Maná have a lead singer whose full name is apparently José Fernando Emilio Olvera Sierra. He's normally known as Fher Olvera.

My question is: what is the 'h' doing there in "Fher"? I'm assuming that it is in some way reflecting the pronunciation of the shortened name, and I'm further assuming that the pronunciation is closer to FARE than FUR. Have I got that right? And if so, how does it work? Is 'h' only used like this before an 'e', or does it have a similar function before other vowels in abbreviations?

Presumably the same thing is happening with the abbreviation of Barcelona, as in the football club? I'm guessing the pronunciation of "Barce" is either ambiguous or just plain wrong, and that's why it's spelt Barça instead, even though that means, again, flinging in a letter that wasn't there in the original (although in this case it's obviously a replacement rather than an addition).

Could someone please explain to me or point me to resources (in Spanish or English) on the relationship between vos + tú + usted in countries where all three are used side by side? As far as I understand, this mostly exludes Rioplatense Spanish. I was recently thrown for a loop with verbs of address by meeting some brothers from Colombia who addressed each other with usted. But I'm mostly wondering because I'm travelling to Central America soon and would like to be aware of any nuances here. I speak Spanish fluently and have lived in Spain and Puerto Rico. I've never been to any other Spanish speaking country.

Thanks for your help!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LZ18ycDK90

In this video of a witness testimony at the George Zimmerman trial, the interpreter uses usted (as to be expected) until about 23:30, at which point he has a brief moment of clarification with the witness regarding pronouns in her testimony, and switches to addressing her with tú. He uses tú for the rest of the testimony.

What motivated him to do this? I am student interpreter and non-native speaker of Spanish, and am interested in the intricacies of formal and informal second person pronouns. Can any native Spanish speakers/interpreters shed some light on this situation?

I'm preparing for certification as a medical interpreter in my state and am hunting down useful materials. Most books out there on medical Spanish seem to be aimed at health care professionals who do not speak Spanish already.

Any thoughts on how best to prepare or material recommendations? I've pulled the limited study material off my state's website, but am looking for juicier material to get myself ready. Any advice appreciated.

I ran across this video of Ricky Martin being interviewed in Portuguese:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt8T_iQ-mOY

I'm a Spanish speaker and have had a lot of interaction with Portuguese speakers, but really don't know much about the language. For the most part, in my experience, if I speak reasonably paced Spanish to Portuguese speakers, they understand me well. However, native Spanish speakers have expressed to me that it is not the same vice versa, and they have considerable trouble understanding all but the slowest, simplest Portuguese.

So I guess I have a couple questions about this video in particular and about the Spanish–Portuguese relationship in general. First of all, is Ricky Martin speaking real Portuguese, or simply "lusophoning" his Spanish, if that's even a thing? I wonder because I understand about 90% of what he says in the video, and have minimal experience with Portuguese.

Secondly, can native Spanish and Portuguese speakers please comment on their ability to understand the other language? Is it a thing for linguistically inclined Hispanophones or Lusophones to simply alter patterns in their own language to make themselves more readily understood to the other group?

Thanks for sharing!

Okay. So, there's been some interest, and hopefully once things are going, there will be a little more, and if it stays moderately small that will be fine.

The two best ideas seem to be trying to get aprende_espanol going again, or start a new community, and I think I'm leaning toward the latter, for two reasons. The first is, I don't know who was running aprende_espanol, and it seems rude to sort of barge in and try to stir it up again. Second and more important is, the name of that suggests that it's a community for people learning Spanish. But if I could, what I'd really like would be a community for both people learning Spanish and for Spanish-speakers studying English (or, heck, studying other languages). I really do want the arrow between Spanish and English to go both ways, and even if everyone who shows up to start with is learning Spanish, I'd like for the premise of the group to be welcoming to people doing things the other way around as well.

I'll look into how to start a community, and then I'll draft a bilingual profile page, and then I'll ask people here to fix it for me, possibly repeatedly, and I'll try to get it off the ground sometime soon. If someone was willing to be/interested in being a co-moderator with me, that would be extra-special awesome.

(The great/terrible thing about studying Spanish so intensively and seeking out communities where I'm in contact with Spanish-speakers learning English is that I start looking at _everything_ with an eye to, 'How on earth would I explain how I chose which words to use, there. How could I even start to explain the ironic violation of grammar in 'extra-special awesome', or how someone might use it, or why they probably don't want to? I love it, but it's meta enough to make my eyes cross.)

If anyone wants to be a moderator, or has thoughts about anything from name of group (I was thinking something kitchy like 'Juntos', but I am very open to suggestions) to things the profile page should or shouldn't say or do, to ways to spread the word to people who might be interested, please say.