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Why is Italian considered beatiful? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| albysky Triglot Senior Member Italy lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4392 days ago 287 posts - 393 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English, German | Message 1 of 35 18 February 2014 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have heard many times foreigners say that Italian is a beatiful language ,especially pleasurable to listen
to. As a native Italian speaker I can not really understand why it is so (i only can acknowledge that laguages like dutch and German may sound at times harsher ), that is why i would like to ask you what is that makes Italian so pleasurable in your opinion . 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AML Senior Member United States Joined 6829 days ago 323 posts - 426 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish | Message 2 of 35 18 February 2014 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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no gutturals and lots of vowels. Gutturals are, by definition, harsh-sounding.
This is what appeals to the masses. I happen to like gutturals, but I'm weird. ;) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| albysky Triglot Senior Member Italy lang-8.com/1108796Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4392 days ago 287 posts - 393 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German | Message 3 of 35 18 February 2014 at 6:56pm | IP Logged | ||
De gustibus non disputandum est :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5770 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 35 18 February 2014 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have no idea.
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| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4711 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 5 of 35 18 February 2014 at 7:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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It sounds very singsongy with lots of vowels in nice syncopation.
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6601 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 6 of 35 18 February 2014 at 7:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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A somewhat cheeky book about Kant (like "how to learn everything about him in 90 min and pass your philosophy exam") quoted a particularly hardcore passage and then said that "even in the most beautiful language it only looks nicer" and provided an Italian translation :)
I think the vocabulary definitely matters. For a speaker of a European language, Italian has a lot of those fancy roots but in a somewhat simplified form (compared to Latin or to how these roots sound when they are loan words). Also it has a lot of L's which make it feel soft. In my opinion Spanish would sound more beautiful if they actually pronounced ll as some kind of L, and if it hadn't changed into j in the older words (cf figlio - hijo, foglia - hoja). Oh and you Italians have a reputation of being great singers. Sounds like an urban myth but I've heard that the first passports/documents even had information about the holder's voice timbre. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fuenf_Katzen Diglot Senior Member United States notjustajd.wordpress Joined 4373 days ago 337 posts - 476 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Polish, Ukrainian, Afrikaans | Message 7 of 35 18 February 2014 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Generally people seem to like it because it has the right amount of vowels, they're very "pure" and "open" vowels, and the intonation is fairly musical sounding as well.
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| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5232 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 8 of 35 18 February 2014 at 8:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Italian succeeds because it lacks some of the most offensive sounds of other languages. Aspiration of consonants--[h] in general. The English retroflex R, the French and German guttural R. Those anserine nasal vowels. Spanish's velar fricative. Retroflex consonants, pharyngeals (anything low in the throat is ugly) or tones.
Also, the clear gemination and lack of consonant clusters makes it sound clean and precise, as if one were playing an instrument with distinct notes. (All subjective, of course.) But perhaps this is all just an accidental result of opera having its roots in Italian. If opera had begun in Yemen, maybe my opinions would be entirely different. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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