A Bit Of An Explanation

I am not a professional. Not anywhere near it. But I like to think that some little observations I have about language and the social construction of it are worthwhile.

Some of these notes were originally written for acquaintances with no linguistic experience whatsoever, so please be patient through the explanations of basic concepts, and the simplistic tone.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Songs In Languages I Don't Speak - Round 14: Niekur

Blogger is being a jerk. It won't let me select videos to upload here, so I'll just link for now.

L.I.D.S.: Lithuanian!


It should be no secret by now that I love Lithuanian, and this song is beautiful both for its language and it's piano.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

More Scandinavian Language Humor

A joke about what language each Nordic country speaks (and Americans' occasionally idiocy about English). Go here for the explanation. (And click for original size.)

Songs In Languages I Don't Speak - Round 13: Kulla Kutse

L.I.D.S: Estonian!


It's pretty much a given that I like Estonian, given its tie to Finnish. And this song is just feel-good music at its most...good.

Monday, June 6, 2011

I'm Thinking...

Since I've lived with dogs my entire life (my family has never not had at least one, and we almost always have two), and walk them as a volunteer at my shelter, and I walk neighborhood dogs for a job, it's safe to say that I'm with dogs. A lot.

And when it comes to dog training, I see everyone always using English words as vocal commands. But it's been well established that dogs don't respond to words - they respond to the physical action associated with that particular sound. When we move a treat so far backwards that they have to sit, and say "sit" while doing that, and then later they will sit after being told "sit", they're not responding to the word's meaning itself. They've come to associate a physical action (sitting) with that syllable.

The reason behind using English words is not for the benefit of the dog, but for the human. A dog can be trained to sit after hearing the word "lala", but us humans can only respond to words that have, in our known language(s), the meaning of the physical action.

So I'm thinking - when, in the years to come, I have a dog of my own, I think I will try to train them using nonsense words. Because I don't think English needs to be used any more than necessary.

(Either that, or I'll use Latin. "Sede." "Descende!" "Veni!")

Scheduling Change

You've probably noticed that I've been pretty bad in keeping up the proper dates of Songs In Languages I Don't Speak. I just have a really hard time remembering "Oh yeah, I'm supposed to do something today", and then there's the actual picking of the song, and I end up off schedule. So, for now, Songs In Languages I Don't Speak will be posting only on Wednesdays. 

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

THIS IS ME BEING DISAGREEABLE

I love the blog The Linguistics Zone - there is a reason I link to it here. But I really have to disagree with this post, in which John repeats the commonly held sentiment that Romance Languages and languages with lots of vowels = musical, and that German and languages with lots of consonants = ugly/not musical.

I hear this from everyone I know. "French and Italian and Spanish are pretty! THEY HAVE VOWELS!" and "German is hideous! It's like, *spitting* 'ACH' all the time and there are no vowels!"

Some of you may know that I think German is incredibly gorgeous. And I absolutely cannot stand Italian and Spanish, two of, in my opinion, the ugliest languages on the planet. French is okay, but I don't agree with everyone who says that it's OMG BEAUTIFUL.

But that's a matter of personal opinion, obviously. And what I really want to talk about right now is the conception that more vowels and less consonants automatically makes a language more "musical".

First of all, remember that there are different types of music. And what sounds good with one type of music will not sound that way with another. For example, a large portion of my experience with German comes from musicals. And though there are, of course, ballads, songs on average tend to be faster than they would be in, say, classical music. And German works with that speed. Those consonant clusters and hard consonant sounds that in John's opinion make German "not really musical" sounds great when sung fast. Because the consonants create a bouncing effect - quickly transferring the singer from vowel to another in the quick rhythm. On the other hand, go and listen to a fast Italian pop song. Because of the lack of substantially hard consonants, all those "musical" vowels run together into one big messy phonetic soup.

Now, the same might not be true of German when it is sung more slowly. Because I've sung a lot of German opera, I do know that quite often the language sounds awkward for those long, held out, slow lines. Because then the consonants do sound like they're getting in the way as opposed to being helpful.

(That being said, I think Italian and Spanish in slow music still sound awful. Nothing will get me to like these languages.)

Also, what really bothers me about this method of measuring "musicality" is the assumption that consonants, especially hard ones and clusters, aren't beautiful. Or that vowels are automatically beautiful. For me, what makes a language beautiful/musical is not just having lots of vowels. For me, the musicality comes from the combinations of vowels and consonants, and how they work together. What drew me to Hungarian (which I rate as second-most musical language I've heard - give three guesses on the first) was how interesting the structure of the words were. Consonants that seemed like they should be clusters but somehow weren't combined with these cool-sounding new vowels! In fact, I liked the fact that there were almost never multiple vowels in a row.

And those guttural German clusters that everyone else seems to think are ugly? I love 'em! Sure, they're hard to say when you're just learning the language, but I still think they sound nice. Because they're paired with vowels in an interesting way. Languages like Italian and Spanish, and yes, French too, do not take advantage of the possibilities of phonetics at their disposal.

(All that being said, Dutch...doesn't use those guttural sounds too well. Sorry dude.)

Some Stuff Worth Reading

I'm feeling quite lazy this week, and I don't really want to write my own articles. But I am reading a lot of awesome languages books, which I plan to write about in the future - including a book by my favorite psycholinguistics writer Steven Pinker.

But again, I don't want to write my own stuff at this moment. So, I'm going to hand out a few suggestions for interesting articles I've found/read. Some of them are old, and some are recent, but I enjoy them all.

"Europanto" - An unintentional interlingua that's being slowly formed in Europe. Thanks to the always-awesome Sofi for showing me this!

Robbers Thwarted By Their Dialect - When you're trying to tell a clerk to "fill the bag", make sure it doesn't sound like "feel the bag".

What Defines A Language? - Thoughts on national and ethnic boundaries, and how they affect the language VS dialect debate.

Five Reasons To Learn A New Language - 'Nuff said.

German Under Attack By English? - I know this phenomenon is happening in so many languages, not just German, but I feel particularly said at the prospect that German might morph massively with English one day. I know I've said I don't mind language change - I don't. But when that change is "let's all make ourselves more like English"...

An Introductory Lesson In Volapük - This is one of those languages I know nothing about. Fun time!

Songs In Languages I Don't Speak - Round 12: Eijő

(I actually have a genuine reason for skipping Sunday. Blogger wasn't working on my computer, so I couldn't log in.)

L.I.D.S.: Livonian!


This is that Estonian band I mentioned earlier. I love everything about this song, not only the beautiful language. I know the title means "Lullaby", but beyond that I can't understand much. But of course, when has that ever deterred me?