Re: 'mouth noises' bad? [was: Re: YAPT]

Tristan McLeay wrote:
> On 5 Jan 2005, at 9.43 am, Gary Shannon wrote:
>
>>> The velocity of sound change seems to vary from
>>> language to language:
>>> Italian is still pronounced more or less the same as
>>> in the Middle Ages,
>>> whereas English has changed dramatically.
>>>
>>
>> As I noted in an earlier post, languages like Italian
>> which are confined to a relatively small geographic
>> area might have more stable pronunciation.
>
>
> Okay... How about this then... Italy is 301 230 km² in size; whereas
> England is 130 395 km². So Italy's about twice as big. If it counts as
> a relatively small geographic area, than England's gotta be *tiny*. Yet
> the variation of pronunciation in England is *huge*---and be ye glad I
> didn't take the whole UK.
The difference is that Italian is a literary language turned into a
vernacular, whereas English ain't.

K.



--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 03/01/2005