Portuguese culture

[Festivus]

An interesting article by a Spanish newswebsite comparing the differences between the Portuguese and the Spaniards: http://www.abc.es/sociedad/20140914/abci-grandes-diferencias-entre-portugueses-201409121825.html

[H]

Faliro, perhaps you could help me on this:

Saw Eternity and a Day from Angelopoulos the other day (perfect movie, in my opinion). There's this word that got stuck in my head, but I wanted to know how to write it and it's real meaning. It's something like "Alafrouiskiute". The Portuguese subtitles said "Iluminado" which means illuminated. The English subtitles said "Most light". I'm supposing this is a word for a wise or saintly person, maybe? If you can help me with this, I'd be grateful to you, love the sound of the word.

PS: Found a clip on Youtube of that scene, this might be help:

https://youtu.be/3NNlMspCpMA?t=2m36s

[Blitzer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPD4AnLj048

[H]

Wish they would've put in there some Carne de Porco à Alentejana, Arroz de Polvo, Bacalhau com Natas and a Bitoque como Ovo à Cavalo.

[Godescalco]

Faliro, perhaps you could help me on this:

Saw Eternity and a Day from Angelopoulos the other day (perfect movie, in my opinion). There's this word that got stuck in my head, but I wanted to know how to write it and it's real meaning. It's something like "Alafrouiskiute". The Portuguese subtitles said "Iluminado" which means illuminated. The English subtitles said "Most light". I'm supposing this is a word for a wise or saintly person, maybe? If you can help me with this, I'd be grateful to you, love the sound of the word.

PS: Found a clip on Youtube of that scene, this might be help:

https://youtu.be/3NNlMspCpMA?t=2m36s

I can't distinguish the whole thing properly but the key word there seems to be ελαφρύς (elafrys) which means "light, not heavy in weight, gentle."

Listening to the girl - she speaks a bit fast - it seems she's saying something like ελαφρύς κοιτάει (he looks light)? Faliro can answer it best.

[Faliro]

Which is correct ^^ literally something looking light (not heavy). However the word I think she is saying now is ΑΛΑΦΡΟΐΣΚΙΩΤΟΣ - 'moonstruck.'

The story of this section of the film is a true one. Solomos was a Greek but raised in Italy. He only spoke Italian. When the War of Independence broke, he travelled to Zante to help - but as a poet - he was useless in a battle. So he decided to write a poem in Greek for the War effort. However, he spoke no Greek - and as anyone who has ever met Greeks can testify to - they are very guarded about their language and giving it to others. Most English nobles in Greece who wished to learn Greek would simply go to a monastery and pay monks to teach teach them. The locals would never teach you anything except how to put your money in their hands. That is why my own Greek is bad. So Solomos told locals he would pay them to give him words. So they started selling him words.. only in Greece.. However, because of this expensive method, he made sure to only ask for interesting and powerful words. In this scene the girl is selling him a word she thinks is special. Thus - by this bizarre method, the poem is actually very beautiful and emotive by any standards. The vision of the poem is one of death and rebirth - blood and violence - depression and freedom. The poem became the Greek National Anthem.

[Godescalco]

Which is correct ^^ literally something looking light (not heavy).

Damn, I'm good.

[Faliro]

Actually just watched it again.. there didn't seem to be two words but just one.. researched and edited my response. The subtitles were wrong and the word is very beautiful one.

Aλαφροΐσκιωτο

[Faliro]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPD4AnLj048

Francesinha looks tasty. Would not mind trying that.

[Godescalco]

Aλαφροΐσκιωτο! I would never get that! 

It's moonstruck.

[Godescalco]

Perhaps we should transliterate it to the roman alphabet for H's sake (I don't know if he can read Greek):

"Alafroïskioto."

[H]

Great explanation as usual Faliro, thank you! And Gottschalk too. I don't know how to read Greek, but I know how to read Cyrillic and I know a lot of Greek words from using them in calculations as variables or constans, when I was studying mechanical engineering, so I usually manage to get to read the words, but it takes me quite a while.

It is indeed a beautiful word. I love languages, I wish I knew a lot more than I actually know, just to get to know these beautiful words. I have another that I like quite a lot, a Russian one, which is цветок (read as tsvetyok). As a noun it means flower, but as a verb it means to blossom, so when Spring arrives and all the trees and plants are blossoming, you can use it.

I pay close attention to all sorts of languages and I've heard for many, many hours of the Latin derived languages, the Nordic and German-like ones, the Balkanic ones, all variants of English and Russian, even lots of unique European languages like Hungarian, Greek, Finnish, Basque, etc., Chinese, Japanese, Korean, all sorts of Arabic and African dialects, plus many South-East Asian idioms and I got to be honest, for me the perfect, most lyrical and virtuous, heart-warming language has got to be Italian. And when it involves poetry or singing, well... it doesn't get much better than that.

[Godescalco]

You know how to read Cyrillic?

That's very good.

I took Russian lessons a couple of years ago. A very difficult language but also very intellectually challenging.

Eastern languages like Turkish and Arabic are also a challenge on their own. I know a bit of both but not enough to get by.

[H]

Let's just say thay I've learned it by osmosis. As a fan of Russian culture, I watched dozens and dozens of Russian movies. After reading so many intro and end credits, you begin to get a grasp on it. Eventually you come across it naturally too over the internet. When I was in Serbia they also taught me briefly how to read their cyrillic, which is similar to Russian cyrillic, which might have helped. I really, really want to learn how to speak, it's been one of my goals for a past few years now. Russian people say my accent is good and I make an effort in order to sound as native as I can, but I can only say loose words, I can't build sentences.

Yeah, those two also seem like a solid challenge as well. I was talking with to an Iranian guy the other day and I have a friend from Jordan too in here and it's interesting to understand how many different languages, dialects and accent are in Muslim countries all over North Africa and the Arabic Peninsula. Funny that Arabic doesn't include the letter P. Farsi might be an interesting language, haven't heard much of it...

[Cenotaph]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPD4AnLj048

Francesinha looks tasty. Would not mind trying that.

Francesinha is amazing, and it's definitely the kind of sandwich that any meat/fatty foods lover would love when done properly, the secret is all on the sauce and the one in the video actually doesn't look particularly appetizing, tbh. And also it's a sandwich specific to the Porto area, even if it has become somewhat popular is other areas of Portugal.

As such, I gotta say I find those choices of foods strange with the exception of Bacalhau à Brás, it is said there are 1001 ways to cook bacalhau, so any of them would work for that video.

But to me, the greatest example of Portuguese cuisine has to be the Cozido à Portuguesa, that is proper all around traditional portuguese food, the others not so much, imho.