Although he could be more explanatory with his distate with Welsh, I think it is interesting to see a negative view point of people living in the UK.
Really, not many people do esthetic studies in Language. I am interested to know how people view English as well. How does one mock English in Korean or other languages? I know how English and Spanish speakers mock Chinese. It’s interesting that they sound the same. It’s funny, at first I thought Welsh sounded very beautiful but then I changed my mind when I listened to it again and took notice of their l’s (well it’s not really an L sound, but it was represented by L or was it a double L? ) But I’ll give it another listen and see if I change my mind again. Yes, it is hurtful to have a someone mock your language or a language that you love, but it gives a lot of great insight into linguistic esthetic perception. Greek was another interesting phenemenon. I had no idea that ancient greek pronunciation sounded unpleasant to modern greeks. Why? And around here, I keep hearing people say German is a harsh and ugly language. It hurts and pisses me off that people so misunderstand German because of it’s association to hitler speech films. And why are you interested in German, do you love Nazis? Language beauty also depends on the speaker too. But I guess I am kind of a hypocrite, because I just judged Welsh by a single sound like these people judge German by the “ach” sound of German. Also something harsh isn’t ugly to some people. A good analogy is grunge and heavy metal music…
Don’t get me wrong, but positive reactions to language is just as important as negative. It is interesting to hear that someone with a semitic background say Korean is beautiful, but I wish people could elaborate more on why they like a language or hate it. Oh well, not everybody can talk about velars, gutturals, and tones.
Anyways, It’s hard to answer what is my native language is, when I could barely speak that anymore. Also, I had two native languages which makes it more confusing. Anyways, I consider English as one of my native languages because I’ve been speaking it fluently since I was in kindergarten. So it’s hard to give an objective view point in English even if it isn’t my true native language.
So yes, I have my hands full. It will be difficult to get my native languages back, even though I have a listening comprehension of them. There are barely any materials for my Chinese dialect. I have to learn Mandarin first because that is only what they offer here. Khmer (Cambodian) isn’t too bad. I was able to find some stuff on it in English. All this while still trying to learn Latin and Greek at the same time.
I really have to ask my mom what she thinks of English. haha.
I can’t really talk about gutterals and tones, but one of the things I like about French is the way they roll the “r”. I also like the way they pronounce “-tion”. Again, I don’t know enough about it to go into detail, but I think it has something to do with the play of the i and the o together.
The double “l” in welsh is pronounced, as I understand it, on the sides of the tongue, almost like a “tl” sound. (Admittedly, I don’t speak Welsh and I don’t listen to it on a regular basis, but I have heard it a couple of times and loved the sound of it.)
One of the things I like about the sound of Gaelic are the “sh” sounds running through it. It makes the whole language sound soft and gentle, to my ears, and I love that.
And, I’ve never heard Latin or Greek spoken, so I can’t tell you what I like about the sounds of the languages, or even if I like them.
I have never heard Welsh but I have a good idea of what it sounds like. Tolkien made his elvish languages with the sound of Welsh and the grammar of Latin to make an interesting combo. But the funny thing is, is that Welsh say that Tolkien’s languages, despite that most other people find them beautiful, sound like a bunch of gurgling noises. To them it sounds like a twisted form of their native language, but to us it is soft and gentle. Just shows how other people view other languages.
I never thought Korean was musical. But if a musical term is to be applied to Korean, it will be “staccato”. But some of the foreigners speak it in smooth musical tone, indeed.
By the way, it was a nice surprise to see someone who has learned Korean.
It makes sense, though; the languages were based on Welsh, but they weren’t the same thing as Welsh. Any changes that Tolkien made (and, again, I don’t speak Welsh [yet], so I couldn’t tell you the differences) would have made it less like Welsh. But if the language was still based on Welsh, then the result would probably sound like a very strange version of Welsh, if it even sounded remotely like Welsh, to a Welsh-speaker.
Yeah, Welsh and Latin would make quite a pair. Think of how many syllables Latin has with the declensions and verb endings. And then you add the sound of Welsh. Welsh was Tolkien’s favorite language, after all.
There are many jokes about Konglish(Korean-English, the English spoken by a Korean who’s bad at English). But I seldom heard about a “mocking” joke about English. Only one mockery about english, which is seldom known to many Koreans, is something from an anonymous, that says “Latin is the speach of God, French of Men, English of dogs, and German is of pigs.” I agree about Latin and French, but not about English and German.
Let us not forget his fondness for Gothic (“Gothic” as in Germanic tribes of the sort that caused the Romans troubles, not people wearing black and smoking clove cigarettes).
Keesa, you can make the Welsh ‘ll’ sound by locking your mouth in position for a simple ‘l’ then trying to make the sound ‘th’ in ‘three.’ Once you’ve got that down, it turns out that most speakers of languages that have this sound send the air out only one side (usually matching their handedness, which is interesting).
My first language is Dutch, then english, german and mouthful of french.
Regarding the aesthetic value of a language i’m sure that as always the beauty lies in the ears of the beholder. Apart from that: de gustibus non disputandem.
English is my native language, and unfortunately the only one I can speak with any proficiency at all. Most of my time has been spent with languages no one speaks any longer, though I’ve had a lot of French, Mandarin and Japanese. But without practice these wither.
That last one I have always wanted to know. All that I have ever been told is that English is spoken with such hard Ss that it sounds like the hissing of a snake. Whoa, just repeat that last sentence and listen. But other than that, does it sound harsh, soft, or just… weird?
That’s interesting. A Korean friend years ago always complained when I tried to get him to teach me some Korean. He said my esses were too harsh. I could never figure out what that meant, though I have some suspicions about that now.
How is English regarded in difficulty to learn? I know that Japanese relate English to Latin. While we get our technical words from Latin, Japanese do so from English on top of borrowing much of their vocabulary from us. English is a very difficult study and business language for them.
Ah. I’ve done ESL tutoring. There are plenty of very odd corners in English that make non-native speakers grouchy, but I suspect that’s true for most people learning a new language, especially one from a different family (say, Arabic to French; Spanish to Italian is probably not quite so much work),
My first language is Dutch and my second is English.
I had two years of French and three years of German.
I forgot most of the french. I can still read German a little bit (better than I can read Greek, and I am trying Greek a whole lot harder than I ever tried German)
Language of dogs!? Who could think that? I think English is the language of poets.
Really, I feel blessed to have English as my native language. There are so many irregular words that I couldn’t imagine. But I love English for the reason that it is the most expressive language. It has a larger vocabulary than any other, and it borrows so many words from other European tongues.
I guess my ideal language is one that is soft in casual speech, but also commanding in orations and demands. Latin does that, I suppose, but other romance languages don’t, especially Spanish. I, honestly, don’t like the sound of Spanish. It was OK when I was learning it in class, but it sounds different when spoken fluently. Perhaps this because of so much I have heard it. Colorado has many Mexican immigrants, and before I started home schooling half of the students at my school were Mexican. When I was sitting in class, having three Mexican girls that were talking at the same time so fast that they were not pausing between sentences, I was about to snap. But I guess three talkative English girls would be as annoying, particularly with a valley-girl accent.
I wonder if there is an accent difference between Mexico and Spain? Like America and England. I always have to say that I don’t speak English, I speak American.
Oh my gosh, yes. I had a friend from Spain in college (UT-Austin) say Mexican Spanish sounded effeminate! (We asked him to refrain from asserting this too loudly at clubs.)
Even in Spain, there are strong dialect differences.
The Cubans have a special way of pronouncing p, t, k that seems explosive to me, though this is from a sample size of n=1 person, and I base this on his pronunciation of Esperanto, not Spanish.
Why can’t the English learn
To set a good example to people whose English is painful to your ears,
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely disappears.
Why, in America they haven’t spoken it in years.
Dunno what latino-maniac thought of such a twisted idea. I think German is poetic, and the Old English musical(in a different sense that Korean is musical. ) English? hmm I haven’t read much of English literature, so don’t know, but I like many of the English musicals, like Cats and The Sound Of Music, Merry Poppins, etc.
Though it’s after I watched the Cats video, I think “Old Possum’s Book Of Practical Cats” by T.S. Eliot is a genius work.
But I don’t think BBC or CNN English(or American) is poetic.
I’d better say it depends on how people speak it, for even Korean can be musical when it’s spoken by some foreigners.
Only one mockery about english, which is seldom known to many Koreans, is something from an anonymous, that says “Latin is the speach of God, French of Men, English of dogs, and German is of pigs.” I agree about Latin and French, but not about English and German.
Ouch! Some of my friends are Latin freaks who hate German and English and French, but this one is just evil
I think American English often sounds very twangy in most dialects, or gruff in a few. British dialects seem more “bubbly” or “airy”, depending on where they are from, so I think.
Spanish definitely has a huge variety of accents. Spain’s Spanish is one of those few languages that actually has a TH sound like in English, whereas Spanish in the Americas has no such thing. Also, if you include word usage with accent, Spain still uses the second person plural (vosotros) instead of just the third person plural (ustedes) as is used instead in the Americas.
Only one mockery about english, which is seldom known to many Koreans, is something from an anonymous, that says “Latin is the speach of God, French of Men, English of dogs, and German is of pigs.” I agree about Latin and French, but not about English and German.
is probably a garbled version of a saying attributed to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles/Carolus/Karl V. “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to horses.”
There is an advert on Indonesian TV at the moment for a dandruff shampoo. It’s based on a parody of Indian Bollywood musicals, and the people in the ad are speaking Indonesian but with a strong Indian accent. It does sound very like the stereotype of an Indian accent you might find in the UK, so presumably Indonesian speakers and English speakers from outside India do have very similar perceptions of what Indian languages sound like.
Indonesians find the intonations of English, the way the voice moves up and down to show politeness or emotion, hilarious.
) But I’ll give it another listen and see if I change my mind again. Yes, it is hurtful to have a someone mock your language or a language that you love, but it gives a lot of great insight into linguistic esthetic perception. Greek was another interesting phenemenon. I had no idea that ancient greek pronunciation sounded unpleasant to modern greeks. Why? And around here, I keep hearing people say German is a harsh and ugly language. It hurts and pisses me off that people so misunderstand German because of it’s association to hitler speech films. And why are you interested in German, do you love Nazis? Language beauty also depends on the speaker too. But I guess I am kind of a hypocrite, because I just judged Welsh by a single sound like these people judge German by the “ach” sound of German. Also something harsh isn’t ugly to some people. A good analogy is grunge and heavy metal music…
