Vanishing national languages

[constantine]

[According to my mother (she's not Russian), Russian sounds like it has too many consonants running into each other, too many long words, not enough vowels, and people speak too quickly.

I told her to listen to Polish, and then ask who has too many consonents. ;D[/quote]
--------------------------------------------------
Oh yes! Polish is too clanging and hushing language, sometimes I have doubts about availability of vowels in it. ;-)

[constantine]

I actually like the melody of Slavic languages and have heard Russian spoken, though not only the words, but the melody is different. We have a Russian restaurant in the area, and of course the clientele is heavily Russian immigrants.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Especially, melody of "SURZHIK". (For non-Russian, it's a peculiar mix of Russian and Ukranian). All my whole being burst out laughing when I hear it. :-)

[constantine]

According to my mother (she's not Russian), Russian sounds like it has too many consonants running into each other, too many long words, not enough vowels, and people speak too quickly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
:-) Yes it's a problem, according to this I countenance movement
for letter "YEO"! (In Russia we have two analogous letters with similar pronunciation and way of writing and because of this, letter "YEO" sometimes is replaced by "YE". And a group of activists founded a committee "IN DEFENCE OF RIGHTS OF LETTER YEO").

[Eric]

piwo said:

constantine said:

I think Russian's primarily inflect a different syllable and not the 2nd last syllable , like Polish. Or at least that's what it sounds like to me?

Russian has very irregular stress. Sometimes, depending on just the number or case of a word, the stress will change.

[Eric]

constantine said:

Oh yes! Polish is too clanging and hushing language, sometimes I have doubts about availability of vowels in it. ;-)

As an experiment, my mother listened to Anna German singing in Polish and Russian. She said Polish sounded more beautiful, though I think this was simply to irritate me.

[Eric]

constantine said:

According to my mother (she's not Russian), Russian sounds like it has too many consonants running into each other, too many long words, not enough vowels, and people speak too quickly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
:-) Yes it's a problem, according to this I countenance movement
for letter "YEO"! (In Russia we have two analogous letters with similar pronunciation and way of writing and because of this, letter "YEO" sometimes is replaced by "YE". And a group of activists founded a committee "IN DEFENCE OF RIGHTS OF LETTER YEO").

In Belarussian, use of "E" with the dots on top for the "yo" sound is mandatory.

[Jaga]

I like a sound of Russian language in songs and stories. But I disliked Russian language in politics - probably I am just biased and I just did not like Soviet empire. Besides, during the communism some of the Russian words were being used in Poland - like towarishtsh and since they were linked to communism these rusicisms were disliked.

[leslie]

What about English, and also the Romance languages?

I do not think that English is a particularly pleasant language to which to listen - it is either too slow and sounds forced (Southerners) or cannot be understood because of its guttural tones and strange language (real Yorkshire speakers). Of all the local dialects, 'Geordie' or the dialect of the North East of England is melodic with a sing-song lilt. OK, they have some strange words, but concentrating just on the sound it's the winner for me.

But for melodic tongues that you can listen to and not need to understand, but just to love the listening because of the smooth, melodic sounds (in general), the Romance languages take pole position. Italian is the most flowing, but French and Spanish are not too far behind. I think one thing that helps is the running together as one flow of many words, especially the words ending in a consonant with the next word beginning with a vowel (forgotten the word for this effect!!). Most of the letters and words are 'soft' without the guttural effect of certainly German and Russian, and to a large extent Polish. I always remember the joke about God creating the different languages and the description of how German came about with him was how he felt after a very heavy night before drinking too much wodka with the Archangel Gabriel - ugh, ugh,yk, yk!!
In spite of these comments, I think it is really impossible to compare in this melodic, flowing etc way the so different Slav and Romance languages. All have their good points, particularly to those who speak them as natives.
Leslie

[suzanne]

bescheid said:

Well, I think, there fore, I am.

National languages as such, is simple what it actually is: simply communication. Beyond that, it is simply another tower of babel.

If, English is the universal language, so be it. For what does it to matter? For what ever language is dominant? We only speak to communicate, we only read and listen, to understand.

{the thing I hate of English is the d---n spelling problems}

Charles

Charles,

True, at its core, the purpose of every human language is communication, pure and simple, but each language is bound up with and is a part of the culture surrounding it, and each language has such unique ways of expressing things that to lose a language means losing ways of thinking about certain concepts.

A college professor of mine, years ago, pointed out this idea. You'll appreciate this: He said that (at least among Western European languages), it was the Germanic languages that make a differentiation between the words "home" and "house" and only those languages even have a word to express the concept of "home." In French, there is no such distinction; they have only one word for house and home, but those words don't quite mean the same thing in English.

Languages are interesting

[leslie]

Charles wrote

{the thing I hate of English is the d---n spelling problems}

Charles even we educated English (and even more so the Scots and Welsh) have often the same problem. But what about Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Russian, Greek etc?! Dr Johnson commented to Boswell that he had met a Polish man with 17 letters in his name but not one vowel - easy to spell?! Is spelling or mis-spelling not a common problem in most languages (even German)?
Leslie

[pieter]

leslie said:

Charles wrote

{the thing I hate of English is the d---n spelling problems}

Charles even we educated English (and even more so the Scots and Welsh) have often the same problem. But what about Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Russian, Greek etc?! Dr Johnson commented to Boswell that he had met a Polish man with 17 letters in his name but not one vowel - easy to spell?! Is spelling or mis-spelling not a common problem in most languages (even German)?
Leslie

Leslie and Charles,

I had great difficulty with both the German and English grammars, because I had it difficult with grammar in general. So also with Dutch and French (I had French in the first three years of my highschool, dropped it in the third, so that I would make it to my exams). When you have already difficult with your own grammar/spelling, than other languages are even more difficult. I realy stuggled and fought with English and German
between the age of 12 and 19. German was important, because it was my communication tool with my Polish grandmother. German has the four nouns (die, der, das, die), differant rules then Dutch, and many complicated words (Germans are specialists in long words). I am thankful for my father who helped me with my German,
and bought Der Spiegel and the Frankfurther Allgemeine for me in my final year at high school. Reading that magazine and newspaper helped me passing my German written and oral exams. (In Dutch you have three sorts of langauge exams, (1) literature; you have to describe the books you read for your list, (2) a written exam about German essays from the German press, analysing texts, answering questions that are asked in a multiple choice list). I got over my troubles with English by going to a summer course in Oxford in july 1989, which was a great international experiance, and improved my English a lot. I would like to advertise language courses to anyone, weather it is in Great Brittain, France, Poland or Germany-Szwitserland!

Polish:
www.polonicum.uw.edu.pl/poden.php?id=centrum
www.polishsummer.com/

For learning German:
www.goethe.de/
www.lemania.com/language-courses/ssdfdb.htm

For learning French:
www.alliancefr.org/

For learning (British) English:
www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/
www.britishcouncil.org/

For learning Spanish:
www.spanishinstitute.org/

For learning Italian:
www.linguasi.it/

[suzanne]

leslie said:

Charles wrote

{the thing I hate of English is the d---n spelling problems}

Charles even we educated English (and even more so the Scots and Welsh) have often the same problem. But what about Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Russian, Greek etc?! Dr Johnson commented to Boswell that he had met a Polish man with 17 letters in his name but not one vowel - easy to spell?! Is spelling or mis-spelling not a common problem in most languages (even German)?
Leslie

Leslie,

Spelling in English is quite a challenge, but probably not so much, if at all, in other languages. At least, not in the ones that are spelled phonetically. I can tell you that Hungarian is very phonetic and very consistent, even though the words look like tongue-twisters to the rest of us. I think German is pretty consistent too.

I think English is unique in its inconsistencies between spelling and pronunciation. My almost-5-year-old son is currently learning basic phonics and learning to read easy words, and as soon as he comes across a word that doesn't have any rule (which is often, even short words), he gets very frustrated! I don't blame him...

[leslie]

Czesc Suzanne
Sorry to disagree with you when you write

I think English is unique in its inconsistencies between spelling and pronunciation.

Look at the simple Polish word before Suzanne - cz - OK = ch, but 'c' can be almost 'ts' on its own, 'ch' when it is followed by 'i', and others. So you have to remember a number of rules, many of which do not mean too much sense. Polish may not have too many inconsistencies and most are 'regular inconsistencies', but it has some and so with almost every language.

So although I disagree that English is unique in this, it does have many inconsistencies spelling v pronunciation. But not only that, it has inconsistencies between the same spelling and different pronunciation. For example. 'ough' in 'plough' is 'plow', in 'rough' is 'ruff', in 'thought' is 'thort', in 'cough' is 'coff', 'could' is 'cud'!!!!!!!!!!!!

But why when I visit a number of countries and I cannot speak the language, I can always easily find people who can speak some English - perhaps not perfectly, but understandably. When I was in the Army in Egypt I was always astounded by little Arab boys who came running up to me speaking and English I could easily understand and they me. Bringing it closer to 'home - I find the same in Poland, except that I often find Poles who can speak better English than me!!! If you are an English-speaker, just try learning Polish from scratch!!!
Leslie

[bescheid]

suzannem said:

bescheid said:

Well, I think, there fore, I am.

National languages as such, is simple what it actually is: simply communication. Beyond that, it is simply another tower of babel.

If, English is the universal language, so be it. For what does it to matter? For what ever language is dominant? We only speak to communicate, we only read and listen, to understand.

{the thing I hate of English is the d---n spelling problems}

Charles

Charles,

True, at its core, the purpose of every human language is communication, pure and simple, but each language is bound up with and is a part of the culture surrounding it, and each language has such unique ways of expressing things that to lose a language means losing ways of thinking about certain concepts.

A college professor of mine, years ago, pointed out this idea. You'll appreciate this: He said that (at least among Western European languages), it was the Germanic languages that make a differentiation between the words "home" and "house" and only those languages even have a word to express the concept of "home." In French, there is no such distinction; they have only one word for house and home, but those words don't quite mean the same thing in English.

Languages are interesting

Suzanne

You are of course very correct, and I know you are correct. It is of both fold to my self. One that being I have never been happy with the past. Another being as a person, I am not a very good linguist. My French is only good in that I will not be poisoned from a restaurant menu. My Spanish is good only enough for reading through the menu. Russian is most forgotten now.

You though, have introduced the situation of exactness, I had not given much thought of until now.

For there are several greetings that depend upon the situation and social acceptance. For many people out of respect, even though have well known one an another for many years, will greet one another with {Sie} other wise as du or ihr.

English seems to exchange this with the use of {Sir}.

Language is a living entity, it changes, grows with use and adapts to ever changing environment.

And thank the goodness of spell check {must remember to use it}

Charles

[bescheid]

leslie said:

Charles wrote

{the thing I hate of English is the d---n spelling problems}

Charles even we educated English (and even more so the Scots and Welsh) have often the same problem. But what about Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Russian, Greek etc?! Dr Johnson commented to Boswell that he had met a Polish man with 17 letters in his name but not one vowel - easy to spell?! Is spelling or mis-spelling not a common problem in most languages (even German)?
Leslie

Yes, I do believe you are very correct with the spelling problems. It is just that life could have been made much more simple with out such differences that exist in English. I realize also that in the German language, there are regional differences in usage. an across the board was brought into national use, as that of High German. It would so seem the Bavarians won another round for their cause.

But, and as you have brought forward into the spot light, perhaps English is not so bad after all. Whilst thinking, German even though is widely spoken, is complicated with the different dialects and usage. Not so far from Pieter's land, there is the {Ostfriesisch} dialect.

I do think perhaps in English, it would be so much simpler if an umlaut was used for word pronunciation, also to simplify matters, if more compound words were used. It is much more simpler to read an entire word rather then grind through several individual words.

Charles