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

Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:

> To: Constructed Languages List <CONLANG@...>
> Subject: Re: What's your favorite sounding word in any language?
>
> At 20:26 18.12.2003, Isidora Zamora wrote:
>
>> My favorite is probably the Danish word "marmalade" for the way that it
>> shows off the intervocallic allophone of /d/ in the Danish
>> language.  Sorry, no transcription available, because the sound is so
>> unusual that there isn't any standard (nor, prehaps, any non-standard)
>> transcription of it.
>
>
> Actually it's [D_o], where the diacritic indicates
> a 'lowered' articulation, in this case an approximant
> rather than a fricative.  I would be tempted to
> transcribe [4_o], but that ain't what the Danish
> phoneticians do.  Personally I think the sound
> merits its own sign, which should be an upside-down
> voiced dental fricative character (i.e. upside-down ð).
>
> Incidentally that Danish word, together with
> _chokolade_, are among my favorites too.
> Something with quintessential Danicity, like
> Dirk's quintessential Shoshoni word.
>
> Otherwise I'm wild about the sound of Icelandic.
> If I have to pick a favo I think it'd be _kalt_
> 'cold' (adv.) which sounds what it means: [k_haKt].
>
> Then there are others in other tungs...

Welsh.  Well, not so much a word as a place name - Llanelli [KaneKi].
Actually, all of Welsh is absolutely beautiful.

Reply