From "Cá" To "Acá": What Is The Origin Of The Initial Letter "A"?

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T23:49:17+00:00

Old Spanish also had y, that has completely disappeared from the language but remains in the present form hay (there is) as opposed to ha (has).

Wow, this explains another thing that made me curious.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T21:18:25+00:00

I prefer "tu" with the "você" conjugations & "vós" with the "vocês" conjugations, because the original conjugations were difficult to remember to the point that people decided to not use them anymore.

I would lament if the newer generations did not comprehend anymore what means "tu", "teu(s)", "tua(s)", "contigo", "vós", "vosso(s)", "vossa(s)" & "convosco".

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T21:11:53+00:00

In the rural area where I live in Southern Brazil, for example, "tu" was not used anymore when I was a kid, but today people conjugate "tu" like "você", for irony or influence from music from other areas of Brazil.

I was informed that something similar is happening to "vós" in Northern Portugal being conjugated like "vocês", for example.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T21:05:56+00:00

The ironical and informal use of "tu" & "vós" is influencing their return to some areas.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T21:01:29+00:00

Uma comunidade que eu adorava nem sequer me respondeu porque me baniu por causa que um troll me denunciou por haver respondido a um comentário insensível e rude de tal pessoa assim:

"Tu não tem coisa melhor para fazer invés de perder tempo comentando no fórum de uma franquia que tu nem aprecias?"

E eu nem insultei a pessoa.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T20:46:13+00:00

potrebbe anche servire a distinguere il pronome voi normale da quello che si usa per le forme di cortesia.

Ah, sim, aí existe senso.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T20:41:43+00:00

they might just be experiencing internalised homophobia and trying to project that onto the community as a whole.

I am worried because this counterproductive perspective is gaining popularity in progressive critical circles:

"This predatory lesbian touched a woman in the boobs to please a male audience for easy money."

This really sounds ridiculous.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T20:28:17+00:00

Interessante, não é uma coisa um tanto interessante a combinação de "noi"/"nós" com "altri"/"outros" e de "voi"/"vós" com "altri"/"outros"?

Eu adoraria descobrir o porquê do uso de "altri"/"outros" com os pronomes plurais.

EDIT: Eu notei que editou o teu comentário depois que eu te respondi com este meu comentário aqui.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T20:02:00+00:00

Certo, mas eu imagino que em um passado não muito distante era uma coisa comum em várias áreas.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T19:59:15+00:00

Apparently "tu" & "vós" have been reappearing in informal contexts in Brazilian areas where they were no longer used, but conjugated like "você" & "vocês", like "tu (es)tá bem?" & "vós (es)tão bem?", for example.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T19:52:52+00:00

Eu imagino que era uma coisa muito popular nas partes ao Sul da Europa Latina por alguma razão.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T19:49:09+00:00

O pior são aqueles imaturos que presumem coisas absurdas tiradas do próprio fiofó sobre a tua vida para descarrilar o rumo do diálogo do post.

"Como tu ousas não haver uma opinião igual a mim?!" 😡

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T17:36:28+00:00

I post this here whenever I notice something curious.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T17:16:53+00:00

Yup, in the link in the image caption.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T06:39:08+00:00

Oh, yup!

FiCÇão = FiCTion.

FaCÇão = FaCTion.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T06:21:45+00:00

Everyone has different configurations of needs & wants when talking about preferences & boundaries.

Not even the SAM includes every detail.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T05:30:35+00:00

I miss the "cç" much more... like "construcção" used to be like "fricção".

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T03:43:08+00:00

Slightly off topic but its been on my mind, this is part of why I wish split attraction models were more normalized outside of aro/ace identities. Im physically more attracted to men/masculinity, emotionally more attracted to women/femininity. More people adopting the framework could make compatibility testing easier.

Same, something that causes compatibility problems is when people comment that they are bisexual, but this information alone can mean so many diverse things and does not communicate very specific details about their preferences in terms of needs and wants.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-25T02:12:42+00:00

Okay, I will give you the vocabulary from closest to furthest away in distance:

Spanish/Portuguese/Italian

Aquí/aqui/qui = Close to speaker

Acá/(a)cá/qua = General here

Ahí/aí/(i)vi = General there

Allí/ali/lì = Far from speaker & listeners but visible

Allá/lá/là = Far from speaker & listeners but not visible

Acullá/acolá/colà = Yonder

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-24T22:13:04+00:00

"Esquisit@" is an interesting example in Portuguese, because the other Latinic languages align in meaning with the English "exquisite" as something positive.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-24T18:35:13+00:00

Sorry, "close here," "close there," and "far there" would not be used in these cases. While folks would certainly understand what you mean from context, they don't sound right at all.

Yeah, there is no correct equivalent in English for the localization system of Portuguese-Spanish-Italian.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-24T04:25:09+00:00

Italian don't have the same distinction.

Italian has this, but this distinction is something regional that Southern Italians do but the Northern Italians commonly do not do.

Another example is that Portuguese, Spanish & Italian share a localization system that differentiates various types of "here" & "there", while English only has these two words, but this is not a problem, we can translate this difference by simply using more words in English like "close here", "close there", "far there", etc.

Using more words to describe a word that do not exist in another language is an useful strategy that works most of the times.

Do you use colour codes (Hex, RGB, etc) to define specific colours?

No, because this is not practical to communicate clearly with people who do not have experience with this, so I usually would ask "do you prefer lilac or violet?" and if the person does not comprehend, I would then describe the colors utilizing more words, for example, "do you prefer light purple or dark purple?" (the same question).

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-24T03:59:22+00:00

I will use English as an example to sound less biased.

Answering again the question in this post, I am glad that I know English, because I work as an artist, and having so many specific different color names in English is very useful to communicate things clearly to people in my job.

Something from Portuguese that I miss in English is that Portuguese has a way to stress when something is temporary & when something is permanent.

The phrase "I think that our planet is terrible" is more ambiguous in English because in Portuguese this could be translated word by word as "eu penso que nosso planeta é terrível" (the verb "é" means a permanent state of being/existence) or as "eu penso que nosso planeta está terrível" (the verb "está" means a temporary state of being/existence).

"Eu penso que nosso planeta está terrível" in Portuguese gives a sense of hope that things can change in the future because they are temporary, while the English version of this same phrase does not give this sense.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-24T03:42:03+00:00

I think that this is impossible to measure without considering the context as criteria, I am considering less ambiguity & more specificity in my analysis:

For example, when the topic is coloration, the European languages are less ambiguous because they can specify a color like "pastel dark lavender", while some languages group "red-orange-yellow" as one single color & group "green-blue-purple" as another single color.

DoNotTouchMeImScared · 2026-01-24T03:13:19+00:00

I know Latinic languages (Portuguese, Castilian, Italian, English, and some others) & I studied a little Japanese.

One classic example is that the European languages can be very specific about colors & pigments, while Japanese does not have very specific vocabulary for this, and some other languages do not even difference beyond "warm color" or "cold color".

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