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Vowels In Languages
First, I'd like to emphasize that this discussion is started in the spirit of highest sympathy and respect. According to PekkaKarjalainen Finnish has the most beautiful vowels in any language . Er, Pekka, did you mean vowels or consonants ? In either case I object and, of course, put my own language forward: Dutch has diphtongs eu (ö), ui, au, ei and so on, which are very hard for most foreigners to pronounce correctly. The Dutch round these vowels more than Flemish do, who tend to flatten them out. As for consonants, Flemish Dutch has remained closer to ancient pronunciation than standard Dutch as it is taught to foreigners and spoken by the Dutch (citizens of the Netherlands). In particular, the letter g is pronounced in a way that I haven't met anywhere else in the world. If you know the German guttural sound "ch", then make it softer and toneful (as opposed to toneless). In general Flemish is softer in pronunciation than Dutch, an effect which is added to by the fact that the Flemish speak in a softer and lower voice than the Dutch. The richness of our phonetics seems to make that the Flemish can become very strong in pronunciation of other European languages, but I must admit that the Scandinavian countries put up some very stiff competition. This is not meant as an offensive statement but rather as a declaration of love for my language. All languages have their beauty and particularities. So, Pekka, convince me. Hello Dieter, I was not quite serious when I wrote the claim about the beautiful vowels. I do not know all the other languages of the world, of course. Most people will probably be somewhat biased towards their mother tongue when thinking about what is the most beautiful language in the world. I know that I am. I will probably remove the whole pronunciation of my name part from the page when I edit it next time. Pekka PS. Finnish consonants are really beautiful too. Almost as beautiful as ejective stops... Hi Pekka, Please retain the description of the pronunciation of your name. It's useful. Perhaps you should just delete the line Finnish has the most beautiful vowels in any language. This will do. I can also start saying that Chinese is also a very beautiful language... :-) unkx80, You are welcome to do so! But I wonder if you could look at some of the English guides to pronunciation of Chinese on the web and give links to a few that you find good. We weiqi players would like to know how to pronounce the names of the famous Chinese players and basic weiqi terms. Perhaps you could look into this sometime. I would certainly appreciate it very much. I wish I could find the time to study Chinese myself; any kind of Chinese in fact. I know that there is Mandarin, Cantonese et cetera, et cetera. No Chinese courses are offered at my University :-( Hi Pekka, You are welcome to take a look at the page Chinese Go Terms. There is also a link there to one of my pages containing actual Chinese characters (Simplified Chinese GB code) for the Go terms. Hope you find it useful. BTW, your Finnish claim did not offend me. :-) --unkx80 This is a copy of the living page "Vowels In Languages" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |