An Observation About Languages
This is actually an observation I made years ago, but since I didn't have a blog back then, I'll make it now as if it were something that only just occurred to me.
Now, I am not much of a polyglot -- I can struggle my way through written French and Spanish, so long as the topic of discussion is "Things found in a classroom", I can spit out enough non sequitir latin phrases to look pretentious, and I know about six phrases in ASL (I do speak about 20 programming languages, but that's neither here nor there).
That said, have you ever noticed that languages, as a whole, have a sort of character about them?
This perception of mine is, of course, fueled by my honkey 'merkin arrogance thinking that the world revolves around our little section of the western hemisphere (Though it was in a British program(me) that it was speculated that back-up controlls to all the world's nuclear weapons could only be entrusted to the British, because "The rest of them were all foreigners." [2 points])
However, having admitted that what I'm about to say is just Ugly Americanisms, I'm going to say it anyway. (But there might be some objective truth to it; it's a well known and popular fact that certain sounds tend to prompt certain emotional responses, which is why men named Matt tend to score more than men named Paul.)
Languages have a character; if you take a random phrase in a certain language, it will just inherently sound like something. For example, anything you say in latin is going to sound sort of mysterious and sage. Carpe canis ergo id est ad majorem veritas vidi carborundurum sounds like some kind of magical spell of great power (Actually, it means something like "Seize the dog therefore that is to the greater truth I saw them grind," but I'm sure it's not even gramatically correct, since I just strung together latin words. Xander, do not speak latin in front of the books [.1 point])
Thus, anything you say in spanish ends up sounding slightly dirty (Donde esta la biblioteca, Biotch). Likewise, anything you say in Italian sounds, well, delicious (Belladonna, in Italian, means "beautiful woman". In English, it's nightshade (The stuff the eye doctor puts in your eyes to make them dialate, incidentally), a deadly poison. Some have taken this as evidence that the two languages are fundamentally similar.). Furthermore, anything said in german sounds mildly threatening (Especially if the thing being said is "Hogaaaaaaan!").
And French, ah French, is the language of l'amour, so what else, anything you say in French sounds romantic (and really, this is the whole reason I'm writing this article). To prove this, I offer the following example of a beautiful, romantic phrase in French:
J'ai un poisson dans mes pantalons
It means "I have a fish in my pants."
Bon Appetite
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Now, I am not much of a polyglot -- I can struggle my way through written French and Spanish, so long as the topic of discussion is "Things found in a classroom", I can spit out enough non sequitir latin phrases to look pretentious, and I know about six phrases in ASL (I do speak about 20 programming languages, but that's neither here nor there).
That said, have you ever noticed that languages, as a whole, have a sort of character about them?
This perception of mine is, of course, fueled by my honkey 'merkin arrogance thinking that the world revolves around our little section of the western hemisphere (Though it was in a British program(me) that it was speculated that back-up controlls to all the world's nuclear weapons could only be entrusted to the British, because "The rest of them were all foreigners." [2 points])
However, having admitted that what I'm about to say is just Ugly Americanisms, I'm going to say it anyway. (But there might be some objective truth to it; it's a well known and popular fact that certain sounds tend to prompt certain emotional responses, which is why men named Matt tend to score more than men named Paul.)
Languages have a character; if you take a random phrase in a certain language, it will just inherently sound like something. For example, anything you say in latin is going to sound sort of mysterious and sage. Carpe canis ergo id est ad majorem veritas vidi carborundurum sounds like some kind of magical spell of great power (Actually, it means something like "Seize the dog therefore that is to the greater truth I saw them grind," but I'm sure it's not even gramatically correct, since I just strung together latin words. Xander, do not speak latin in front of the books [.1 point])
Thus, anything you say in spanish ends up sounding slightly dirty (Donde esta la biblioteca, Biotch). Likewise, anything you say in Italian sounds, well, delicious (Belladonna, in Italian, means "beautiful woman". In English, it's nightshade (The stuff the eye doctor puts in your eyes to make them dialate, incidentally), a deadly poison. Some have taken this as evidence that the two languages are fundamentally similar.). Furthermore, anything said in german sounds mildly threatening (Especially if the thing being said is "Hogaaaaaaan!").
And French, ah French, is the language of l'amour, so what else, anything you say in French sounds romantic (and really, this is the whole reason I'm writing this article). To prove this, I offer the following example of a beautiful, romantic phrase in French:
J'ai un poisson dans mes pantalons
It means "I have a fish in my pants."
Bon Appetite
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