best language to you when written or heard

Discussion in 'Linguistics' started by science man, Aug 22, 2010.

  1. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

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    4,160
    yes korean is a beauctifull language; and spanish, looks like french, alot of similarities, also some similarities with italian, and some with arabic.
     
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  3. Someone'sBrother Registered Senior Member

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    Some aboriginal languages of Canada are written in syllabaries, consisting of triangles and arcs etc. Blackfoot and Cree used something similar as well. I don't think it's as widely used nowadays as it was some years back.

    Ethiopic script is interesting too.
     
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  5. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Twelve of those symbols are Chinese characters; a couple of them occur more than once.
     
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  7. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    and your point is?
     
  8. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Just pointing it out. You still run into logograms in Korean writing, especially in South Korea.
     
  9. Twelve Registered Senior Member

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    Spanish is pronounced in a distinctive way, it has many different accents according to the country where is spoken, American or European Spanish.
    Which Spanish were you referring to (Mexican, Argentina, ...)?
     
  10. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    I think the differences are greater between social and occupational classes than between countries. Radio announcers tend to sound about the same anywhere, and in any country they speak quite differently from rural people with only a few years of education, and both from hip young kids in the cities. This is due to the same influence as in the USA: radio and TV. Our regional accents have been very much leveled over the past 60 years because all the children hear the same announcers with their hybrid Hollywood/Manhattan accent.

    In Latin America there's a strong trend to teach all TV actors to speak with a Mexican accent. Viewers were a little uncomfortable when a family on a telenovela sat down to the dinner table and Mama spoke like an Argentine, Papa like a Colombian, Abuela like a Guatemalteca and little brother like a Mexican.

    I didn't find the Spanish in Spain to sound very different from educated businesspeople in Mexico, except for la zeta. (I didn't go anywhere where they pronounced la elle, that's not so widespread.) And I was surprised to find that la zeta is not as strong and harsh as foreigners make it in our exaggerated elocution. The tongue is not pushed so firmly against the teeth so it sounds like a cross between a TH and an H.
     
  11. Twelve Registered Senior Member

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    I agree with you about the influence of radio and television announcers on people, but ... I guess that anyone studying Spanish isn't able to understand Southern Spaniards -and they're watching T.V. everyday!-.


    It's just a question of taste. Everyone has different tastes about how a language sounds, but I think that there is a connection between your likes/dislikes for a foreign language and your attraction for the place and people who speak that language. If you are dreadfully disappointed by some individuals of the same origin, you will probably loose interest in learning their language.
     
    Last edited: Feb 26, 2012
  12. angslan Registered Senior Member

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    16
    I will put in my vote for most beautiful writing system as Tibetan.
     

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