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What makes your native language unique?

  Tags: Native Language
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
86 messages over 11 pages: 1 2 3 4 57 ... 6 ... 10 11 Next >>
Leopejo
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Italy
Joined 6115 days ago

675 posts - 724 votes 
Speaks: Italian*, Finnish*, English
Studies: French, Russian

 
 Message 41 of 86
12 January 2009 at 11:23am | IP Logged 
Not unique, and not perhaps proper linguistics (?), but

Italian: gesticulating :D

Finnish: speaking while inspirating (aspirating?).
1 person has voted this message useful



obara
Newbie
India
subramanian-obula.blRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5972 days ago

21 posts - 22 votes
Studies: Gujarati

 
 Message 43 of 86
13 January 2009 at 12:23pm | IP Logged 
In Sourashtra Language, nasal is aspirated.

na and nha.

Other consonants aspirated are mha, rha and lha.

These sounds are not available in other Indo-Aryan Languages.

I would like know know whether these sounds are available in any other language.


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Satoshi
Diglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 5829 days ago

215 posts - 224 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, English
Studies: German, Japanese

 
 Message 44 of 86
13 January 2009 at 3:17pm | IP Logged 
I think Russian may be the language with the most palatalized consonants.


I did some counting: in Brazilian Portuguese there are 7 palatalized consonants (unless I made a mistake somewhere).

--

I find Portuguese rather beautiful. It is economic where it needs to be, but not so much as most sentences being comprised only of a verb (like sometimes it happens to Japanese).

But one thing I do not like is the lack of expression capability. In English you can make statements drawing upon the listener's previous knowledge, and usually you can insert comments and things unrelated to the main subject and be understood. People usually look funny at me when I try to say things in a more complex way, and will be lost a lot of times whereas a English-speaker would understand it perfectly well if I make comments or change subject midway through what I am saying.

This obviously has to do with the literacy of who I am talking to, but I've found that the usual directness of speech will normally make people less apt to comprehend long or roundabout or complex sentences in Portuguese.

This does not, however, apply to writing.

And outside Portuguese, I find Japanese to be quite unique when it comes to the way they make words sound like. They may suddenly speak very very nasal in a way that would make me sound like a run-out-of-the-mill street tranvestite if I were to use it in Portuguese. But it sounds great in Japanese.
They will also prolong a syllable for forever (Arigatoooooooooo~). Sometimes the voice will get harsh and rough, or drop into a very low register and sometimes they will say things very un-loudly, barely audible at all. They also will ascend into a very high register towards the end of the sentence depending on the feeling they may want to communicate, and both genders do it, though male will almost always go nasal when doing it.
The cuteness of the culture also translates into speech, with Japanese small girls being the epitome of cuteness when speaking. I am serious, no other kid will be as cute as a japanese one. Never.
On the whole, they look like they are singing when speaking. It is very nice. On the other hand, Portuguese is more monotonal, comparatively. The way I speak (very tone-rich, but not in the Japanese way) will very often make people wonder whether my voice is failing due to puberty (I look way younger than I am).
1 person has voted this message useful



kottoler.ello
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6009 days ago

128 posts - 192 votes 
Speaks: English*, Russian, Mandarin, French
Studies: Japanese, German

 
 Message 45 of 86
14 January 2009 at 11:30pm | IP Logged 
cordelia0507 wrote:
[QUOTE=Sennin]

But more importantly, Swedish is the language spoken by the glorious Vikings :-) in the beautiful (currently snow-covered) land of great forests and mysterious aurora borealis....


OH, I AM SO HOMESICK!!!


Not so fast, Sennin. I love Swedish too and fully intend to study it seriously one day, and for a long, LOOOONG time I've wanted to go there (and visit the family, ja?), but really, it's just as correct to say Swedish is the language spoken by the Vikings as it is to say Spanish is the language spoken by the Romans. Swedish certainly descends from the language of the undoubtedly glorious Vikings, but no Viking would have any idea what you were talking about if you tried to speak Swedish to them. Now, if you're going for the language of the Vikings, the best you can go as far as living languages is Icelandic. I've quoted this way too many times, on the internet and in real life, but it's not uncommon for Icelandic school children to read the Eddas in the original Old Norse, without too much difficulty, either, due to the relatively small amount of change from Old Norse to Icelandic.

Although, other than this small inaccuracy, I couldn't agree with you more. Although I'm currently learning Icelandic, one of my reasons for doing so is to make it much easier to learn Swedish later.
1 person has voted this message useful



Sennin
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 6040 days ago

1457 posts - 1759 votes 
5 sounds

 
 Message 46 of 86
15 January 2009 at 1:46am | IP Logged 
Hmm... Actually, cordelia0507 wrote this, not I ;p.
1 person has voted this message useful



kishi2009
Newbie
China
Joined 5798 days ago

2 posts - 2 votes

 
 Message 47 of 86
15 January 2009 at 2:42am | IP Logged 
LittleKey wrote:
i agree, English is unique because of how it's vocabulary is taken from so many different language groups.

Absolutely!Unique!
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kishi2009
Newbie
China
Joined 5798 days ago

2 posts - 2 votes

 
 Message 48 of 86
15 January 2009 at 2:44am | IP Logged 
I think that English bears the magic. At the sight or at the ear of the English,I will feel excited.Maybe because I am an English major.


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