Re: The beautifulest phonology

i think too that culling phonemes into a grid and using the survivors only
hardly makes a lang sound nice--although allophones may make up for phonetic
dryness like in Tepa and Uatakassi. i also think that certain combinations of
"ugly" phonemes sound nice and vice versa. for instance i don't like my own Tunu
words with the shapes chVsV and mVbV but i don't mind sVchV and bVmV ones. i
hate final -f and i don't like words with r- initials but i'm ok with vr-, etc.
I think it's all about what your ear finds "balanced". and even then, an "ugly"
word may sound pleasing when associated with other words within a phrase, and
vice versa. there are conlangs that i think have beautiful words and make ugly
phrases. that's why i need to read a text aloud to make my opinion about a
conlang. and the more legible the better.

Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
>>>
This I think is one of the serious weaknesses of this 'beautifullest
phonology' approach (apart from beauty being a subjective criterion and, in
this case, 'in the ear of the listener'), namely that we seem to be
thinking of phonemes, or sets of phonemes, in isolation.

To return to my cooking analogy, if I simply mixed together all the
'beautifullest foods' or, if you prefer, the 'most aesthetically pleasing
to the taste buds' foods, I think the result would not be pleasant.  We
would need a little sourness to counteract the overall sugary effect; we
would need other flavors to spice the thing up.

a few harsh sounds might add spice to the language  :)
<<<


Mathias
www.geocities.com/kalatunu/index.htm

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