--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Andreas Johansson <andjo@F...> wrote:
> > You don't have to go that far afield. German is a pretty
harsh/guttural
> > language. English is somewhere more toward the middle thanks to
French
> > influence.
>
> [snipped]
>
> And don't tell me about German's [x]'s - French is brimful with [R]!
GAK!
Not only that; in some environments, [R] becomes [X], e.g.
in |prendre| [pXA~dX]. Gack! German [x] and especially [C]
are so much smoother.
> As you've probably gathered by now, I hold German to be a more
beautiful-
> sounding language than French. Apparently a minority opinion ...
I certainly share that opinion. It's probably true that
we're a minority in that respect, but I believe that to be
due to the fact that most people don't really know German
and French, only the stereotypical B-movie renditions
thereof. Sometimes I think the English language has the
word "guttural" for the sole purpose of describing its view
of German. ;-)
-- Christian Thalmann