Re: Harsh vs. Soft Sounds

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 11:36:13 -0700, JS Bangs <jaspax@...>
wrote:

>Sebastian Adems sikyal:
>
>> Well, for instance, French would be considered soft, where as a more
>> guttural sounding language (can't think of anything right now, maybe LotR
>> Orc tongues?)
>
>Please quote the material you're responding to, as I'm doing.
>
>I think French is one of the most unaesthetic languages I've ever heard.
>But in any case, "harsh" vs. "soft" is a pretty subjective distinction,
>and you haven't really defined it. I prefer "soft" sounding languages, by
>which I mean languages dominated by voiceless sounds and without too many
>velars or other "gutterals". Nonetheless, I've made languages that weren't
>like that at all, and a poll of the languages on Conlang reveals plenty of
>"harsh" languages by that criterion.
Hmmmmm... I'd rate voiced sounds as "softer" than voiceless ones,
especially in the case of [s] vs. [z]. An especially "soft" sound would be
something like [Z] or [z`], while "harsh" sounds would include things like
the Arabic [q] [X\] [s_?\], the creaky voice of Vietnamese, or for a
conlang example, the Klingon [tK] [qX]. I suppose the common element of
these sounds is lots of noise in the signal. Sounds can be unpleasant
without necessarily being "harsh" (like the former French vowel [9~]),
while some "harsh" sounds can be quite nice (like the Welsh [K]). (Of
course these are personal preferences.)

Replies