Whats your favorite Germanic language?

Fredrik from Norway   Thu Jul 27, 2006 6:02 am GMT
LAA:
/x/ is, roughly speaking, the ch in Scottish loch, the ch in German acht, the g in Dutch, the j in Castilian Spanish.
Tiffany   Thu Jul 27, 2006 6:09 am GMT
I dislike the "H" sound of the "J" - I think it is harsh. I also think the "g" is hard. This is all subjective. No one is denying the sky is blue.

<<There is a reason I trained my Rottweiler in German.>>

Well, I can see your opinions are deeply rooted - and deeply biased. All you do is bark (perhaps the pun is intended) orders at your dog. And so it follows that you see German as good for what...?

I trained my rottweiler in English. He seems just fine. I'm sure if I trained him in Italian, he'd be just as well-trained. There are words for halt, sit, roll over and play dead etc in every language. Just like there are words for love, poetry and art in every langauge. And you know what? They all convey the same meaning, just as well.
Tiffany   Thu Jul 27, 2006 6:13 am GMT
I should clarify, that the "h" sound, I describe "J" as having, is the same one Fredrik is talking about. The sound does not exist in my dialect of English.
fab   Thu Jul 27, 2006 6:33 am GMT
" In what way is Spanish harsh? To an extent, beauty is subjective, but no one can deny that the sky is blue either. How is Spanish hard? "


Three persons here declared that they found spanish a quite harsh language, me, Tiffany and Greg. I don't think it is a coincicence. I like very much spanish, and maybe the reason why it like it more than Italian is because this harder pronouciation. I think it fit well in the tragic and rude landscapes of Spain - the desolated windy plateaus of Castilla, the almost desertic Andalucian horizons or the sharp cutted wavy coasts of Galicia.

In my opinion, Italian fit better in the image of joy and peace spread by the tuscan hilly countryside.

But In my case and Greg's were as talking about Spain's Spanish sound wich is quite different of most L-American accents.
greg   Thu Jul 27, 2006 10:40 am GMT
LAA : « I personally like Germanic languages, but not for the same reason I like Romance languages. I like Germanic languages because they are egalitarian, austere, rustic, unpretentious, and masculine. I like Romance languages because they are melodius, romantic, sensual, voluptous, amorous, cultivated, poetic, and artful. »

C'est ce qu'on appelle un mégacliché. Je ne vois pas en quoi l'allemand serait égalitaire ou modeste... D'un autre côté, l'italien ou le français peuvent être dépourvus de toute volupté dans la bouche de certains.





LAA : « There is a reason I trained my Rottweiler in German. »

Je plains ton chien. Pas d'avoir été dressé en allemand, mais d'avoir été conditionné en allemand factice.
LAA   Thu Jul 27, 2006 5:22 pm GMT
"Well, I can see your opinions are deeply rooted - and deeply biased. All you do is bark (perhaps the pun is intended) orders at your dog. And so it follows that you see German as good for what...? "

Who said I barked orders at my dog? I didn't raise a fierce, ferocious violent hazard to society. He is very protective of myself and my mother, and his home, but he is also very gentle. He sleeps in my bed on his own pillow right next to me everynight. I trained him in German, because for one, he's a German breed. Two, I didn't want others to be able to command him, so I selected a foreign language like German.

I can't agree with the three of you on the "roughness of Spanish". An "h" sound and a "g" sound are universally recognized as being softer, or less strongly pronounced than a hard "g/j" and a sharp "c". In fact, that is why Spanish developed those different sounds. In the Latin of Spain, the "c"s in a word like "Amico" were not pronounced as strongly as they were in the Latin of Italy, and that is how they developed into words like "Amigo". I haven't been exposed to enough regional accents of Spain, so maybe I'm missing something. All I can compare it to our Latin American varieties of Spanish, which are not "hard" by any concievable stretch of the imagination.

If any Romance language sounds harsh, it is Romanian or French. And I don't consider either language to be harsh at all. But the nasalization of French makes it seem less soft, and melodious compared to Spanish or Italian. I still love French, but in my mind it doesn't compare to Spanish or Italian. Spanish and Italian are by far, my favorite languages. Portuguese is okay.

About this song. One, it is a peaceful, beautiful melody. This will only naturally feel calming to the mind, and make the language appear soft and melodious. Secondly, a young woman is singing the song. A young woman's soft voice is almost always going to sound more pleasant than the rough voice of a man.
Tiffany   Thu Jul 27, 2006 5:42 pm GMT
<<An "h" sound and a "g" sound are universally recognized as being softer, or less strongly pronounced than a hard "g/j" and a sharp "c".>>

Obviously this is not so universal. You are entitled to think what you wish, even if you wish to deny that our opinions have as much validity as yours. Not everyone believes as you do.

I'm not sure what song you are talking about, but I don't base my opinion on the "sound" of languages on songs. Every language I ahve formed an opinion of has been one I've heard spoken. Actually, recently, I've taken to pulling up video on youtube. Good resource for that sort of thing, I think.
Tiffany   Thu Jul 27, 2006 5:49 pm GMT
Oh, perhaps you are talking about the Frisian song. I have formed no hard opinions of Frisian yet. It may yet turn out to be harsher than Spanish. I was comparing the song - which by your own definition is "soft and melodious" - something I obviously do not find Spanish to be, despite the language the song was in.
LAA   Thu Jul 27, 2006 5:52 pm GMT
I'm not denying the validity of your opinion. I just don't see how you arrived to that conclusion. But, whatever floats your boat.

I'm actually trying to find spoken word of various languages on the web, but everytime I google it, I get a bunch of other crap.
Tiffany   Thu Jul 27, 2006 5:59 pm GMT
I recommend youtube, really. I'm having a lot of fun. What langauge are you to hear? The obscure dielcts spoken by few people may be hard to find, but usually all major languages are represented.
LAA   Thu Jul 27, 2006 6:09 pm GMT
I would like to hear more European Portuguese, Romanian, and north Germanic languages like Norweigan and Swedish. Oh, and maybe some Galician.
Tiffany   Thu Jul 27, 2006 6:15 pm GMT
I don't see why you wouldn't be able to find most of that, even Galician.

Here is a preliminary search I did on Romanian: http://youtube.com/results?search=Romanian&search_type=search_videos&search=Search

Sure not all video will be what you want to watch (some are songs, clips of scenery) but there are bound to be some there.

Here is one about a Romanian Gymnast where you can hear the Romanian announcers speaking: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0XuaCXt5C4U&search=Romanian

There are more like that further along the page.
fab   Thu Jul 27, 2006 7:05 pm GMT
LAA

Lo que yo dije es que espanol me parece mas ruguoso que Italiano - Para mi es solamente una opinion propia, y tambien quiere decir que prefiero este sonido con "asperidades" (no se si esta palabra existe en Espanol) que un sonido que estaria demasiado suave.
LAA   Thu Jul 27, 2006 7:45 pm GMT
Pero que hace aspero espanol?
fab   Thu Jul 27, 2006 7:59 pm GMT
" Pero que hace aspero espanol? "


Es sobretodo la "jota" y la "g", suenan quasi arabes para nosotros (hablo de la "jota" de Espana, yo se que el Espanol de latino America suona mucho mas suave)
El ritmo rapido y mucho mas plato que el itailano, la jota, la gran presencia del sonido "k", en palabras donde tenemos "ch" en frances (cosas/choses, cansion/chanson). A mi me parece mucho mas "ruguoso" que el muy suave Italiano. Pero es muy relativo y cada uno tiene su opinion.