Re: What's your favorite sounding word in any language?

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Robert Jung <RobertMJung@H...> wrote:

 > My favourite word in any language is, I think, the Hungarian word for
"peanuts" (!):
 > fo[with trema]ldimogyoro[with acute] (*)
 > /f2ldimod_joro:/ (Sampa)

 From the little I know about Hungarian, I would have expected
[f9ldimOJ\Oro:].  O with two acutes would be [2:].

That reminds me of the Finnish word for "icecream cups".
It's not beautiful in any way, but wins the prize for most
ridiculous word hands-down.  |Jäätelötötteröt|, pronounced
as written.



 > PS: Where did Hungarian get all those unrelated vowels: /O/, /a:/,
/E/, /e:/? Why not /a/ or /e/? Where did they go? (Or did they ever exist??)

I find them quite intuitive.  You can find the /E e:/ /O o:/
pairs in German too, for example.  As for /O a:/, well, I
presume it used to be /A A:/ or something initially, and
proceded to dissimilate into /Q a:/, with the /Q/ merging
with /O/ for lack of distinctness.  In Russian, unstressed
/o/ and /a/ are indistinguishable too, so it's not unheard
of.



-- Christian Thalmann

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