Re: OT Re: some spoilers: language and THE DAVINCI CODE

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>

> > English _recorded/spoken_ backwards-- now that is a wonderment. Sounds
like
> > Russian with a Swedish accent, or vice-versa.
I forgot to mention one of my favorite soundtracks... that to Eyes Wide
Shut, and only for Jocelyn Pook's "Backwards Priests."  I got Pook's
original CD, and her other music is just as bizarre.  (The title "Backwards
Priests" was changed to "Masked Ball" on the soundtrack).  The only part of
EWS that I liked was the Hieros Gamos scene in the film with that unearthly,
almost satanic music.  It seems to be a Latin mass or liturgy sung
backwards.  When you hear it, you wonder what language it is, and why the
phonetics of it sound so unnatural.  It only dawned on me when I heard it on
the car radio that it was backwards.  The initial plosives are sucked in.

> And very hard to produce without mechanical assistance.
Well exactly.  Swallowed final consonants have to be reproduced backwards.
Initial and medial plosives have to sound inhaled instead of exhaled.  It's
very difficult.  Intonation is all off.

> I believe it was
> Douglas Hofstadter who wrote about spending quite some time learning to
> pronounce English backwards effectively - such that he could record
himself
> and then play it backwards and get intelligible English.
Right.  It's not as easy as saying Nosnibor for "Robinson."


Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."