Re: Liking German

Quoting Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>:

> Thomas Wier wrote:
> >Quoting Heather Rice <florarroz@...>:
> >
> > > Is there such a thing as a sound being especially full
> > > of a certain language, seemingly to hold all the
> > > essence of that language?
> >
> >Not acoustically, but certain sounds certainly are associated
> >within some cultures with certain languages.  German always gets
> >singled out for having /x/, but it's rarely realized that /C/ is
> >used at least as often, and perhaps much more so, than /x/.  German
> >is nowhere near as "gutteral" (to use a fairly linguistically empty
> >term) as, say, Atkan Aleut or Central Siberian Yupik. Those languages
> >have ungodly numbers of uvular stops and fricatives.
>
> If I were to complain about German (I too like it - it'd be interesting
> to know why conlangers seem to like it much better than the average
> non-German westerner!), I'd call it "ishy" - all those [S] and [C]s!
> Tschechisches Schloss! ("Czech castle")
Yeah... that's a good way of putting it.  If I were to
disparage it, I'd say that German is basically English as
spoken by a drunken, slurring nuclear-plant technician
desperately trying, and failing, to get a date by
expounding on "The Sorrows of Young Werther" and, then,
logically enoughs, commits suicide.

(John, are you reading this?)

==============================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...>

"If a man demands justice, not merely as an abstract concept,
but in setting up the life of a society, and if he holds, further,
that within that society (however defined) all men have equal rights,
then the odds are that his views, sooner rather than later, are going
to set something or someone on fire." Peter Green, in _From Alexander
to Actium_, on Spartan king Cleomenes III

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