What does English sound like?

Travis   Mon Nov 12, 2007 2:50 am GMT
Don't forget Scots, which is an Anglic language closer to English than the Frisian languages are, but still distinct from English as opposed to English dialects proper...
AJC   Mon Nov 12, 2007 9:07 am GMT
Scots, at least in its Ultra-Nationalist let's-collect-all-the-words-we-can-think-of-that-aren't-standard-English-and-call-them-a-language form, is not something that is actually spoken anywhere in the real world.
Guest   Mon Nov 12, 2007 10:43 am GMT
<< What does English sound like to people who speak other languages? Is it soft or gutteral; pleasant or unpleasant; ugly or beautiful? >>

I believe it depends on which accent they hear. For sure Kiwi English sounds different from Irish English even in the ears of someone who doesn't understand the language at all.
Travis   Mon Nov 12, 2007 1:45 pm GMT
>>Scots, at least in its Ultra-Nationalist let's-collect-all-the-words-we-can-think-of-that-aren't-standard-English-and-call-them-a-language form, is not something that is actually spoken anywhere in the real world.<<

Umm, sorry, Scots is simply what was spoken in lowland and northeastern Scotland prior to the union with England, not some kind of nationalist invention (and yes, the Scottish government had Scots as its working language). Of course, the reason why Scots is not spoken much these days is because it has been largely replaced by English since the union.
AJC   Mon Nov 12, 2007 4:12 pm GMT
Scots as what was spoken prior to the union is not spoken *at all* nowadays. Whether what modern Scottish people speak in whichever part of Scotland has some or many connections back to it does not hide the fact that as a literary standard it is dead and reconstruction it in the modern era is an artificial execrcise.
Guest   Mon Nov 12, 2007 4:47 pm GMT
To me English (especially American English) sounds as if they had a potato into their mouths.
AJC   Mon Nov 12, 2007 5:45 pm GMT
Once that standard has gone though, there is no *essential* "Scots" to which we can give the attribute of begin a separate language. There is only the actual speech of actual Scottish people. Where you see influences from English in their speech, you do in any realistic definition of modern Scots *as well*. The existence of such a standard in the 16th/17th century doesn't affect how it works now any more than taking the terms of reference back to the 14th/15th century make Scots a dialect of Northumbrian