There are 3 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
From: C. Brickner
1b. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
From: David McCann
2a. Re: Observations on verbal periphrastic constructions
From: Wm Annis
Messages
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1a. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
Posted by: "C. Brickner" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 7:16 am ((PDT))
Certainly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder or, in this case, the ear of
the hearer. Perhaps French and Italian are considered beautiful because of the
prominence of vowels.
I find the following (of the languages with which I am familiar) beautiful,
some in special circumstances:
1. European Portuguese.
2. Modern Greek.
3. German sung by a boys' choir.
4. Japanese spoken by a woman.
5. Swahili.
6. Turkish (front rounded vowels).
7. Hawaiian, Maori, Samoan, etc. Talk about a prominence of vowels!
Charlie
----- Original Message -----
What makes a language be considered beautiful?
Why is Italian (and sometimes French) considered the most beautiful
language by so many people?
Até mais!
Leonardo
Messages in this topic (8)
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1b. Re: THEORY: How to be beautiful?
Posted by: "David McCann" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 8:15 am ((PDT))
On Tue, 28 May 2013 08:11:41 -0300
Leonardo Castro <[email protected]> wrote:
> What makes a language be considered beautiful?
>
> Why is Italian (and sometimes French) considered the most beautiful
> language by so many people?
>
Normally I'd argue for an objective aesthetics, but when it comes to
the sound of language I think it's going to be subjective.
I love Italian (opera?) and Brazilian Portuguese (Gal Costa, Astrud
Gilberto!) but hate French (years of fruitless study at school?).
Americans often say Bostonians "sound British", but to me it's one of
the worst of their accents, while Californians and Floridians sound
least "foreign".
Messages in this topic (8)
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2a. Re: Observations on verbal periphrastic constructions
Posted by: "Wm Annis" [email protected]
Date: Tue May 28, 2013 7:46 am ((PDT))
A similar sort of periphrases for asking reasons is "what BE SUBJ
doing GERUND" as in "what is Bob doing walking the dog?" On second
thought, this is less an actual question than an expression to note
something unexpected, with a strong suggestion that the event is not
merely unexpected but that there's some good reason for it *not* to
happen.
--
wm
Messages in this topic (2)
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