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Truly monosyllabic languages | ||
Tags: Pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5449 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes  Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 1 of 4 07 July 2010 at 6:23pm | IP Logged |
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Do they exist as spoken languages anymore? Are there any truly monosyllabic languages that can express abstract and technical ideas with one syllable words?
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| Gareth Groupie United States Joined 5459 days ago 51 posts - 67 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cherokee, French | Message 2 of 4 07 July 2010 at 8:11pm | IP Logged |
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I don't know of any natural langs like that, however Speedtalkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedtalk (a theorized conlang) might be what you seek.
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| indiana83 Groupie United States ipracticecanto.wordp Joined 5491 days ago 92 posts - 121 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Italian | Message 3 of 4 07 July 2010 at 8:26pm | IP Logged |
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Cantonese is not monosyllabic, but it definitely has a larger portion of monosyllabic words than you might be used to in Mandarin. Mandarin has fewer tones, so must rely more heavily on disyllabic words:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language#Phonology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language#Grammar_and_mo rphology 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6473 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 4 of 4 08 July 2010 at 1:36am | IP Logged |
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Classical Chinese, while obviously no longer in current use, is almost completely monosyllabic. There are some compound words, but they are rare. Classical Chinese was actually used in writing right up to the 20th century (more correctly called Literary Chinese after the Classical period).
It's not clear how much of this is because written Chinese is abbreviated (the logographic writing system allows you to cut out a lot of unnecessary syllables) and how much is because spoken Chinese at the time really was monosyllabic. We can only look at ancient spoken Chinese through a distorted lens, to say the least. Edited by furrykef on 08 July 2010 at 1:37am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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