Re: CHAT: Lg prefs (was: Re: Blandness)

On Thu, 5 Apr 2001, dirk elzinga wrote:

> Hey.
>
> Regarding language preferences. You all don't know what you're
> missing by not having heard clean, crisp Comanche or the soft
> gentle murmur of Shoshoni. Absolutely delightful. Get out of
> Europe and explore the world!
>
I used to think Nahuatl was really frightening looking, with all the x's
and q's, and tz's and such. But recently I heard it spoken at a conference
( a native speaker read poetry ) and it was beautiful !

On other preferences: I don't especially like the sound of American
English (my native lang), but its hard to get outside of it to hear what
it must sound like if you haven't spoken it all your life. There was a
great TV comercial not long ago that used randomly mixed up English words
and which gave a sense of what English must sound like to non speakers.

I like the sound of Russian (especially when spoken by women). When I was
studying in Russia and I'd get to tired to try to keep up with the
conversation that was way above my level, I'd close my eyes and just
listen to the sounds. Russian is my favorite language to sing in. Pure
vowels and lots of consonants in the front of the mouth.

I've never liked the sound of the (modern) Romance languages. But there
may be some bias against Spanish. Not against Spanish speaking people. But
In my high school we had a choice of Spanish, German, or French. 90% of
the people took Spanish. Consequently, since I didn't like 90% of the
people in my high school I tried to take anything else (which turnrd out
to be German after a spectacularly unsuccesful initial effort at French).
They made fun of the six of us in German class, called us Nazis and such.
So Spanish always sounds like the language of all the people in my high
school I thankfully don't have to spend time with any more.

-David Lucas Robert Stokes

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