Most prosodic language? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Most prosodic language?
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19 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3

meramarina
Diglot
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Message 17 of 19

09 January 2010 at 11:41pm | IP Logged

The term prosody encompasses many features of versification: metre, rhyme, stanza form, and all the other features of patterned language/speech. All languages employ some form of prosodic technique. In English there are four metrical systems:

Accentual, or strong-stress: used in Old English, four strong alliterations per line.

Accentual-syllabic: used from the fourteenth century onward; based on combinations of stressed and unstressed syllables; by far the most common, it most resembles natural speech and is still in use.

Syllabic: pattern is based on number of syllables and not on stress; rare in English but used in Japanese.

Quantitative: Also very rare in English; repetitions of a syllables length or duration; a feature of Greek, Sanskrit and Roman poetry.

It took me a while to find the reference for this--my good old Norton Anthology! I remember studying it for graduate exams many years ago.
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cordelia0507
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Message 18 of 19

10 January 2010 at 12:23am | IP Logged

Gusutafu wrote:

Россия wrote:

(...) Russian, and it doesn't seem like this language would be a good one to write poetry in...

This is a bit like saying that Italian isn't very good for writing operas?

Class Gustaf!
Pushkin and Majakovskij, who? Nobel prizes, what Nobel prizes? "Россия" lol!
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j0nas
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Message 19 of 19

10 January 2010 at 2:25pm | IP Logged

Россия wrote:

Gusutafu wrote:

Россия wrote:

I am learning Russian, and it doesn't seem like this language would be a good one to write poetry in, because the present tense seems so simple (at least to me).

This is a bit like saying that Italian isn't very good for writing operas.

By the way, what is too simple about the present tense?

I find that the lack of articles makes it seem simplistic (not that that is a bad thing, I just think that English is better suited to poetry).

What does lack of articlaes have to do with the present tense?

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