Re: TRANS: a love poem

On Sat, 14 Aug 1999, nicole perrin wrote:

> Nevok=E1nyi is more Magyar-ish, or at least it was.  Now its more
> abandonnned-ish.  But I think the /u/ sound makes it sound more manly,
> and also the <kh> and <gh>, which are pronounced as voiceless and voiced
> uvular fricatives, respectively.  I'm not really sure how Tolkien meant
> them to be pronounced, but that's just sort of how they look to me.=20
> Also, the lack of an <e> seems to take some softness away.  And my <r>
> is like in French, a uvular trill, I believe.  So everything sounds sort
> of growly and mean to me.  Although when I speak in it, I have to soften
> it up a little, and make the <kh> and <gh> more hissed, because I can't
> make my voice sound that manly!
>=20
I not inclined to think of the sound of a language as gender-related so
much as the way it is used.  Features I would suggest for a male language=
=20
would be: render all concepts as concrete, mechanistic perception, use of=
=20
epic metaphors...  Other people may have other suggestions. =20

Then there is this little gem:

"Bismarck was very fond of enlarging on his favourite theory of the male
and female European nations.  The Germans themselves, the three
Scandinavian peoples, the Dutch, the English proper, the Scotch, the
Hungarians and the Turks, he declared to be essentially male races.  The
Russians, the Poles, the Bohemians, and indeed every Slavonic people, and=
=20
all the Celts, he maintained, just as emphatically, to be female races.
A female race he ungallantly defined as one given to immense verbosity,
to fickleness, and to lack of tenacity.  He conceded to these feminine
races some the advantages of their sex, and acknowledged that they had
great powers of attraction and charm, when they chose to exert them, and
also a fluency of speech denied to the more virile nations.  He
maintained stoutly that it was quite useless to expect efficiency in any
form from one of the female races, and he was full of contempt for the
Celt and the Slav.  He contended that the most interesting nations were
the epicene ones, partaking, that is, of the characteristics of both
sexes, and he instanced France and Italy, intensely virile in the North,
absolutely female in the South; maintaining that the Northern French had
saved their country times out of number from the follies of the
"Meridionaux."  He attributed the efficiency of the Frenchmen of the
North to the fact that they had so large a proportion of Frankish and
Norman blood in their veins, the Franks being a Germanic tribe, and the
Normans, as their name implied, Northmen of Scandinavia, therefore also
of Teutonic origin.  He declared that the fair-haired Piedmontese were
the driving power of Italy, and that they owed their initiative to the
their descent from the Germanic hordes who invaded Italy under Alaric in
the fifth century.  Bismarck stoutly maintained that efficiency, wherever=
=20
it was found was due to Teutonic blood; a statement with which I will not=
=20
quarrel. - Vanished Pomps of Yesterday by Lord Frederic Hamilton, first
published 1919.

Well it's a longer quote than I originally expected, but there you go...>=
=20

- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus =09=09=09hobbit@earthlight.co.nz

    Jesus is working out his salvation; he is about halfway there.