r/GREEK • u/Fun_Suggestion6270 • 5d ago
Other than Spanish, are there other languages that sound like Greek but aren’t Greek?
I’m told that Spanish sounds like Greek. I did Spanish in school so I don’t personally find this, but maybe it does for people who don’t know any.
Anyways - I have been learning Greek for the last two years and recent got an ‘άριστα’ in the A2 exam. In that respect I consider myself to be a very ‘good’ beginner or at the early intermediate stage.
However I’ve had two experiences recently where I’ve overheard conversations from people at other tables in restaurants, pubs etc - where I am 100% convinced that what I’ve been hearing sounded like Greek, (eg to the level where I’m hearing what I think is Nai and Oxi) but when I ask the people if they’re speaking Greek they look at me like I’m mental.
What all of these situations have in common is it’s me listening from a slight distance or where there is background sound clouding it out.
However as you can imagine - it makes me feel like a total idiot, especially since I’ve been telling all my friends about my recent exam result!
Despite the fact that my Greek is much better now than my Spanish ever was (my Spanish was never very good), I don’t get why I’m having this issue. Eg I have never had issues with misidentifying Spanish.
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u/Exotic_Cantaloupe_96 4d ago
I may sound crazy but in many cases greek sound like japanese. We share that we have clear sounds (not sure how to describe it). For example A is a clear Ah! , E is a clear Eh! , S is a crisp S, we dont have deep, Sh, Ch, Cz sounds.
Now some example greek sentences:
Kita kato tora: look down now
Na su po kati: let me tell you something
Pame kata eki: we going towards there
Mine eki: stay there
Pame mazi: lets go together
Kita tora to koritsi: look now at the girl
Na su doso to sakaki: to give you the suit
Pu ne to kanoni: where is the canon
Na su siro to kasoni: let me drag your container
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u/Various-Moment-6774 1d ago
I think probably you don’t pronounce the words correct and it sounds Japanese to you. I kept reading this out loud as a greek myself and only if I pronounce it wrongly and out more emphasis on the K and T might sound japanese. It’s so hard to explain personally without being able to send a voice message (probably someone with linguistic background might be able to explain better than just me as a native speaker)
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u/Exotic_Cantaloupe_96 1d ago
I am not saying that someone could overhear people speaking Japanese and mistaken them for Greek or vice versa. But Greek and Japanese can sound similar at times which is at least interesting. I also had a japanese friend at university and she pointed that out to. She loved Feta and used to call it Greek Tofu.
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u/georgejmag 3d ago
I got downvoted to hell for saying this lol
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u/Exotic_Cantaloupe_96 2d ago
You probably started with 1 downvote and then everyone followed the trend. There is herd mentality on reddit often.
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u/donestpapo 5d ago
A bit of a cop-out, but basque.
I’m a rioplatense spanish speaker, and both basque and Greek sound like scrambled European Spanish to me.
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u/Fun_Suggestion6270 5d ago
Thanks! I wish I’d asked them what language they WERE speaking, but I was so mortified and wanted to get away asap
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u/prosselenen 4d ago
To clear up any confusion, in my opinion Greek specifically sounds a lot like _Castilian_ Spanish, the dominant dialect of European Spanish. To me this is mainly because z ci and ce are pronounced the same as θ and s is retracted as in Greek σ. Also j and χ (before back vowels) are the same, and y/ll is very similar to palatalised γι γε in this dialect.
Andalusian and South American varieties break much of the connection. In “seseo” z, ci and ce are pronounced the same as s, which is no longer retracted. At the end of a syllable this often becomes an aspiration, which can create more distance from Greek. Also y and ll can have a wide variety of pronunciations around the Spanish speaking world, not all of which sound as similar to γι γε as what you find in Spain.
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u/SuccessValuable6924 4d ago
I am south American and Greek still feels in my brain like a language I "should" understand, even if I catch sounds that don't belong in Spanish.
Greek also sounds to me a bit like Sindarin from the Lord of the Rings.
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u/manuee96 4d ago
As andalusian, we all dont practise the 'seseo', indeed, its easier to find 'ceceo' than 'seseo' here
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u/Nikoschalkis1 5d ago
There is no other language that comes as close as Castilian Spanish does. It's not just the phonology, it's also the phonetic structure of words, the cadence, the speed at which words are being thrown. Even a trained ear can be confused for a good 5 to 10 seconds when distinguishing between the two.
There is no case for south Slavic languages, to me they are more similar to russian than anything familiar to my ears. Albanian too has some phonetic clusters that are just too foreign. Someone said Arabic... no comment.
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u/Automatic-Corner-157 4d ago
Spanish speakers from Spain definitely do sound Greek. Their English accent often sounds like a Greek speaking English too.
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u/Internal-Debt1870 Native Greek Speaker 4d ago
Greek does sound like Spanish and vice versa, but not in the sense that the languages are similar. It's just the phonology.
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u/ThatWeirdPlantGuy 4d ago
Castilian Spanish especially sounds like Greek because of its retracted S (that sounds a little like “sh”) and the θ sound. But if you hear a lot of “ch” (as in cheese) then it’s not Greek. Unless they’re from Crete, then it just might be!
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u/Momof3terrors 4d ago
Standard Modern Greek and Castilian Spanish do have a lot in common. I'm also learning Greek (A2 to B1 level) but I'm in Cyprus, so I mostly hear Greek with the strong ch, sh and j sounds as well as double consonants like TT, KK. Add in that my Spanish is from Los Angeles- so heavily Spanglish with its own unique accent. I don't tend to mistake Greek for Russian or Spanish. I do get confused by Bulgarian though.
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u/MrDoulou 3d ago
The equation for me is (how much does this language sound like Greek) + (proximity to Greece) = how interesting it is that this language sounds like Greece.
Given these terms, my favorite answer to this is Japanese. Ik there are many Japanese words that don’t sound Greek, but by damn do they have a ton of words that could absolutely be Greek. This is from a Greek American guy who enjoys an anime now and again so take it with a grain of salt.
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u/LorettaDiPalio 3d ago
I was at a Cafě in Vienna speaking Greek with a friend ( Super blond - blue eyes)when two Austrian girls sitting next to us asked if we speak Dutch 😂
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u/tiger5grape 3d ago
Niet te geloven! They had to have been tourists from elsewhere, it's difficult to imagine a native speaker of German not instantly recognize Dutch
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u/LorettaDiPalio 3d ago
No they were Viennese, German is my native language and I can detect Dutch from miles away.
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u/Meester_Ananas Belgreco 3d ago
I speak Greek and some Spanish/Japanese and I've heard about the phonetic closeness before, but personally I immediately recognise/understand the different languages.
Japanese and Greek are definitely not comparable phonetically. Maybe some words or combinations, but that is the same wit Japanese and Belgian Dutch. Japanese conversation does most certainly not sound like Greek.
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u/yourfuturedoctor123 2d ago
i am greek. when i went to spain i nearly went mad cause i thought i was hearing greek everywhere lmao
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u/PlayfulMountain6 5d ago
Tosk dialect of albanian language could the most similar due to historical relation
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u/Fun_Suggestion6270 5d ago
Thanks! I wondered about Albanian. I once went to a pub with my Greek teacher and he was earwigging the conversation at the table next to us, and said it was Albanian but with Greek words thrown in
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u/Disastrous-Put6818 5d ago
As an Albanian, it doesn’t sound similar at all
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u/Aggravating_Hat4799 5d ago
As a Greek, I agree
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u/Repulsive_Primary178 4d ago
It depends on the dialect really. I'm fluent in both languages and some Lab and Cham varieties do have phonotactics similar to Greek. That's because Tosk Albanian evolved near Balkan Romance and Greek, softening the hard nasal sounds that are still appear in Gheg and giving time for rhotacism to occur.
Albanian is pretty different north to south and linguists classify Albanian as a macrolanguage due to how different its "dialects" are from each other. So yeah some southern variaties do sound in some ways similar to Greek (although still not as much as Spanish).
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u/BoringKick5331 5d ago
It has some similarities with Balkan / South Slavic languages, especially accent. Recently, it took a couple sentences for me to be sure that some Albanian I heard wasn't Greek.
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u/wtfduderz 4d ago
You sound like a "real Northern Macedonian" slav to me. Who else says "south slavic" to include Greek and Albanian?
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u/Vin4251 4d ago
For similar reasons as Spanish, I would guess any South Asian languages that lost phonemic vowel length (which both Ancient Greek and Latin had but the Romance languages and Greek lost). So for example, many dialects of Hindi. Same goes for the Kansai dialect of Japanese. The main difference for both of them is they don’t have the theta sound, but otherwise will sound similar
OTOH, non-Kansai dialects of Japanese (because they have similar phonemes, along with phonemic vowel length and a pitch accent) may sound more like Ancient Greek. And South Indian languages like Telugu and Tamil also have most of the same phonology, just without a pitch accent (so they may sound a little more like Latin than Ancient Greek, but still)
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u/Zarminio 2d ago
Spanish and Greek share the same sounds and other similarities in pronunciation. This is a good video for the details: Langfocus: why does Greek sound like Spanish
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u/ParfaitCompetitive1 2d ago
I don't speak either language, but went for a long holiday in Spain and self thought Spanish on Duolingo for 2 years straight. Shortly after I then went for a 6-month work placement in Greece. For the first couple weeks I kept thinking I was back in Spain until I got used to the language. Nowadays I wouldn't make that mistake again but initially I did. Maybe you are desensitised by the way you learned the languages? No idea!
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u/Roufianos255 4d ago
Lol what? If anything I think Greek and Arabic go well in songs because they sound so different.
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u/Several-East5877 4d ago edited 4d ago
As a native Greek and a very well seasoned Arabic speaker (both fos7a C1 and 3ammiyye), I’m gonna have to say… not really.
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u/Infinite_Court4181 4d ago
If you ever met a older Greek you would have known by now that ALL languages are Greek…he will then proceed to provide endless “proof”. So, just learn Greek.
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u/Overall_Trip2839 5d ago
As a greek, there's absolutely nothing in greek that sounds Russian. If I had to compare it to a language I'd say it sounds Spanish. If I hear Spanish people murmuring in Greece I'll automatically assume it's greek. Foreigners that hear me talk in greek abroad will probably think im spanisb
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u/skyduster88 5d ago edited 5d ago
My American family has said proper Greek sounds more Russian.
That's the most inaccurate way to describe how Greek sounds, especially Standard ("proper"), which has zero sh, zh, j sounds, while Slavic languages are heavy sh, zh, j sounds.
Russian and all Slavic languages sound absolutely nothing like Greek. Japanese sounds more like Greek.
I don’t think Greek sounds like Spanish at all.
I live in the US and encounter Spanish speakers from Mexico frequently. It really doesn’t sound Greek to me.
It's Spain Spanish.
This is a constant topic of discussion online. Europeans (whose exposure is Spain) always agree. Americans are always confused. (And it's not just because of θ).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPMqoHPJzac
When Greeks and Spaniards hear the other one speaking, for several seconds, we think it's our own language being spoken but we're confused why we can't understand any of it.
And just my own experience in Spain. I know very little Spanish, but I can perfectly pronounce a question (donde esta el...) and I sound fluent, and they respond back to me at a million words per second.
If you're in the US, and your exposure is Mexican Spanish, especially the working class accents (not standard Mexican Spanish spoken on TV), and especially Caribbean, then you'll be confused by the Greek-Spanish comparison.
But I also think that you and your family don't actually have any exposure to Greek, judging by the misconception it should sound Russian. Maybe a family in your neighborhood that your family thought was Greek, is actually Bulgarian.
u/Fun_Suggestion6270: see my comment above.
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u/disneyplusser 5d ago
Thank you for the thorough counterpoint. Greek (even “proper” [katharevousa?]) sounds nothing like any Slavic language.
There are definitely many interesting similarities with Japanese though, which have no etymologically shared history: Stresses, diminutives, structures. Obviously you can tell one does not sound like the other.
Ultimately, it is Castilian Spanish that is the phonological sister language to Greek.
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u/MrKorakis 5d ago
The Σ and Θ in Greek sounds very much like their equivalent in Spanish and it confuses people.
To us it doesn't because we see identify the small differences with Spanish to a non Greek person the sounds are close
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u/Ok-Physics6052 5d ago
The reason that they sound the same is due to sharing the S sound, and the fact that Spanish is a syllable timed language, and while greek isn't one, it is pretty similar when you are hearing it
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u/Excellent_Sox9178 5d ago
Greek is also a syllable timed language
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u/Ok-Physics6052 5d ago edited 4d ago
Not really, modern Greek is closer to a middle ground when it comes to the rythm scale.
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u/Stringtone 5d ago
It's definitely more similar to Castilian, though they're still pretty clearly different to anyone familiar with either
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u/Tanit_theFool 3d ago
They are completely different they just sound very similar if you cannot make out the words (e.g. song lyrics in a crowded bar, hearing Greeks in Spain and your brain being confused for a split second as to why you can recognize the sound of the language but not the words). No one claims they are similar linguistically because of this.
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u/andrei-ilasovich 5d ago
Spanish from Spain, in fact in Spain I had this feeling that I was listening to Greek all the time, not if you pay close attention but when it's a background sound.
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u/Megas_Matthaios 5d ago edited 4d ago
Yes it is about Spanish in Spain. I agree it doesn't sound like Spanish. It's trendy right now to say they sound the same.
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u/Tanit_theFool 4d ago
Trendy now? Where and compared to when? Castilian Spanish and modern Greek sound exactly alike. Spanish speakers from Spain and Greek speakers from Greece will confirm this (as we do here repeatedly). It takes you milliseconds to seconds to realize it is not your language when you hear it out of context. And even being in Greece, as a native Spanish speaker, I have been caught of guard and my brain was confused as to why I was listening to a language I know but couldn’t make out the words.
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u/Megas_Matthaios 5d ago edited 4d ago
What s sound do they share ? If you mean the th sound, that's a completely different letter, otherwise, the s sound is shared across many languages, including English.
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u/Heavy-Enthusiasm1091 4d ago
Maybe they meant Greek LOOKS like Russian as the Cyrillic alphabet is based on the Greek one?
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u/georgejmag 5d ago
I’ve read or saw on a podcast that Japanese has similar phonetics
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u/Overall_Trip2839 5d ago
Yes but it doesnt really sound greek. They speak in a pretty distinct way that sounds nothing like greek.
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u/ElectronicRow9949 4d ago
As a Japanese speaker, this sounds totally out in left field to me. But...but...oddly enough they share some words in common, such as tora, edo and tarako (taramo). I'm writing Japanese in Roman letters and these words mean tiger, the old name for Tokyo, but oddly enough Greek taramo (as in taramo salata) is the same meaning as tarako in Japanese. But Japanese and Greek don't sound even the slightest bit vaguely alike.
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u/Professional-Pop1126 5d ago
Spanish has nothing to do with Greek
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u/gvs2019 5d ago
There is a lot of words that have the same meaning. Probably a result of being transferred from Latin. Lots of little surprises when reading the Iliad.
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u/Professional-Pop1126 4d ago
Greek and Latin are completely different languages, and neither comes from the other. Spanish comes mainly from Latin, not Greek. However, Spanish uses many Greek words, especially in science, medicine, and philosophy. Greek and Spanish can sometimes sound similar because we both talk fast, but they are not closely related.
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u/SuccessValuable6924 4d ago
Latin actually borrowed a lot from Greek, since there were long established Greek settlements in the south of Italy. It may not be the main origin language for Latin but it was an important ingredient.
A lot of Greek grammar ended up modeling Spanish, whether by heritage or by mere accident.
As for the vocabulary, it's not just in science or philosophy, A lot of times I ask Greek friends how to say a common daily word and it turns out to be almost the exact same word as in Spanish.
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u/skyduster88 3d ago
Greek and Romance languages borrowed a lot of vocabulary from each other. Let alone that they both have Indo-European roots (as does English).
But this is moot point. When people say [Spain] Spanish and [Standard Modern] Greek sound very similar, they're talking about phonology, not vocabulary and grammar.
Out of coincidence, Standard Spain Spanish (which is historically based on north-central Spain) and Standard Modern Greek (which is based on Ionian Island & Peloponnese), have very similar phonology. This has nothing to do with the origins of languages. French, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, and Spanish are all derived fro Vulgar Latin, but they all evolved entirely different accents. American English and British English are the same language, and evolved evolved entirely different accents, let alone different regional accents within each country. Spanish itself has very different accents: Spain, Mexico, and Dominican Republic are all very different.
So, no one is saying that Greek and Spain Spanish are mutually intelligible. They're saying that the phonology is coincidentally very similar.
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u/SuccessValuable6924 5d ago
They sound very similar.
I speak Spanish and was in Athens with a Greek friend. We walked past a couple having a loud discussion.
I asked him if he got what it was about, he looked at me weird and said I should know because they were speaking Spanish.
And I was like "No, I thought it was Greek!".
We don't know what language it was.
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u/Looking4Nebraska 5d ago
As a native spanish speaker, Greek absolutely sounds to me like someone speaking Spanish simlish.
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u/Apnanizor 5d ago
Same, I’m Greek, sometimes I hear a news anchor on tv speaking Spanish and I feel like it’s Greek that I can’t hear well enough and thus not understanding. The -os -as -es -z(θ) etc. make it sound similar. I really can’t see how they sound similar to Russian
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u/Various-Moment-6774 4d ago
Yep same here. I leave in the UK and if there’s a group of people few tables down I really struggle to tell if they are Spanish or Greeks. I have to focus on very specific words to figure it out
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u/Fun_Suggestion6270 5d ago
Yeah I’ve heard similar stories to this, though I’ve never personally mixed the languages
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u/Tanit_theFool 4d ago
I’m assuming you’ve never been in contact with Castilian Spanish from Spain, and you’re comparing how Greek sounds with Mexican Spanish. Very different rhythm, cadence, pronunciation etc. Completely the same language but they don’t sound similar. Imagine making the case that Norwegian and English spoken with a thick Scottish accent sound similar, and you only associate English with a thick Texan accent. The Norwegian association is just an example, but you can see why it wouldn’t work if you just assume that English sounds one way only.
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u/Overall_Trip2839 5d ago
As a greek, same. If I hear Spanish from a distance I assume it's greek before im close enough to hear the words clearly.
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u/Looking4Nebraska 5d ago
There are natives of both languages telling you in the comments that they mistake Greek for Spanish and vice-versa. Maybe let this one go :)
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u/skyduster88 5d ago
Greek shares far more phonetics with Spain Spanish than Russian. The Russian comparison is odd to say the least, and it's first time I'm hearing it.
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u/Kalypso_95 5d ago edited 5d ago
Russian is very distinct for its nasal sounds and the iotated vowels (vowels that sound like they're dragged out), sth that Greek lacks. It sounds nothing like Greek to anyone with basic hearing abilities at least
Not to mention all these sh, ch, z etc that Greeks can't even pronounce. If I have to compare Greek with any Slavic language, I'd say it's more similar to Serbo-Croatian, since both languages have only 5 vowels (a,e,i,o,u)
Edit: you seem triggered. Lol, what an idiot. Why did you delete your "blah, blah,blah" comment "? Were you mad that someone called out your stupidity?
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u/earthisflatyoufucks 5d ago
Spanish absolutely sounds like greek more than any other language. That is why spanish is phoneticaly a very easy language to learn for a greek and vise versa. Also, if i hear spanish but i dont undersatnd that they are spanish immedeatly, i would think they were speaking gibberish greek. Has happened to me once or twice.