Re: Woody or tinny?

Bjorn Kristenson wrote:
>
>Hi
>
>I've noticed most asked seem to say that they're building of a vocabulary
>is
>generally done on an aesthetic basis; either by using 'nice' or even
>'beautiful' words for 'beautiful' meanings and 'ugly' words for 'ugly'
>meanings, or vice versa. Or just one of these (probably more common, we all
>want out conlang to sound beautiful, don't we? :)
>
>This made me wonder, people on this list generally seem to have a
>preference
>for how a word should sound, and then I presume there must be a preference
>for how they should NOT sound. So, can you name me some words (natlang
>probably, conlang if you've got them) that you find particularly ugly?
>
>Two words of English I particularly dislike are 'queue' and 'genre' (the
>latter with most sorts of American accent is appalling to my ear). Dunno
>why, no explanations needed :)
>
>Bring 'em if you've got 'em
Hm. I like dental and near-dental consonants. It is, of course, a mere
coincidence that Tairezazh (my most-developed conlang) bristles with sounds
like s, z, t, d, n, l ... and let's not forget ts, dz, tsh, dzh, th, dh and
r. My favourite cluster is /st/, also very common in Tairezazh. As for
vowels, I favour "clean" cardinal vowels. I abhor nasalized vowels (French
is UGLY, and let's not forget the terrible Portuguese lingo!).

I don't particularly like English's vowel system - way to many reduced
middish vowels. As for your examples, I've got no problem with 'em as long
as the vowel of 'genre' is strictly oral ...

                                                     Andreas
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