Re: Thought and Language

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Tom Wier wrote:
> > As for whether Spanish or Italian are beautiful, I have not studied
> > either of them in any detail, so I would refrain from making any
> > comments about their "beauty".
>
> Well, when I made my statement about French, perhaps I should've stated
> that I was referring solely to the *sound* of the language, the
> phonology.  I don't like the sound of it.  You need merely hear a good
> sample of a language to judge how beautiful/harsh its *sound* is,
> detailed study is required to judge the beauty of its structure.  It's
> analogous to judging a person's beauty at a glance, but whether or not
> they're a likeable person takes longer to learn.
I'm not sure if that analogy works perfectly though.  For example,
if someone hears a string of phones, many of which may not exist
as phonemes within his native phonology, he will not e.g. be likely
to be able to hear any difference between when /x/ in German is
instantiated as [x] (as in "acht") or when it is instantiated as [C],
the palatal fricative (as in "ich").  For them, it's just a string of mea=
ningless
sounds, unless you're acutely aware of the linguistics involved;
thus I would rather say that phonology has much to say about whether
a person thinks a language is beautiful.

In addition to that, you can say that one's level of awareness about
language and sound are also important, for similar reasons to those
above.  Particularly aware English speakers could without having
any linguistics training sense the difference between the various
allophones of /t/ in English, of which there are many.

My personal theory about why people dislike gutteral sounds so much
is because of its association in our cultures with various inner mouth
processes like coughing, spitting, etc, ones which we also usually associ=
ate
as somehow unpleasant (perhaps because of disease).  It's not because it
has some sort of inherent ugliness -- we should all know that trying to
describe objective things is more or less fruitless.

Anyways, I now think that after many years of study, I have a much
greater appreciation of German, and in some sense consider it
a much richer and fuller language than others I've studied, particularly
Esperanto, which to me seems a bit contrived (perhaps that's because
it is).  For some reason, I like languages that have a "crisp" sound to
them, like Latin and Greek,  ones that have definitive beginnings and
ends, as it were.   I don't really know how to explain it.  Hmmm. :)

I've babbled enough.  What do y'all think?

PS does anyone _not_ make a you/y'all distinction in their conlangs?
Just curious.

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Tom Wier <twier@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

"S=F4=F0 is gecy=FEed / =FE=E6t mihtig God manna
cynes / w=EAold w=EEde-ferh=F0."
 _Beowulf_, ll. 700-702
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