Zompist Bboard Again

I generally dislike the phonology and morphology of English - all those diphthongs, yikes - but the richness of reading, watching, and listening materials available in it more than make up for that, IMO.

On the other hand, the English phonology looks cool to me. Indonesia's phonology looks boring. It looks like Average Joe phonology. However, Indonesian's morphology is the cooler one.

Indonesian phonology is a lot easier to learn, though.

Xwtek wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2019 12:27 am I find Navajo language very cool and local people should revitalize it... even though I speak another (somewhat) endangered language (Javanese) that I should've been immersed in. Yes, I'm a hypocrite.

I don't think the fact that you weren't immersed in Javanese is something you should be blamed for, and Navajo has never died and is one of the most widely spoken indigenous languages in the United States (but of course is still endangered). So I don't agree that you're a hypocrite.

zompist wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2019 8:44 am

quinterbeck wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2019 3:15 am That's... absolutely bizarre, because it's the complete opposite of how English speakers typically think of the two languages. I can't quite believe someone would say this in earnest.

(That said, have you seen a phonetic transcription of French?? It certainly doesn't look melodious)

Neither does English! We have loads of consonant clusters and some really clunky vowels.

Of course, people make adjustments when singing, and a good singer can make any language sound great. (These would make an interesting study, in fact— has some linguist done so?)

Maybe the real problem with that guy in the comment was that in French, he can understand the lyrics
I don't like La Femme's male lead singer voice much, and I don't think it'd be improved by switching to English. The other singer (a woman) is a lot better - Mycose compares very favorably to many New Wave Songs, even regardless of the lyrics. (*)

(*) It's about yeast infection. I find it funny. I got a sick sense of humor I guess.

Ars Lande wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2019 11:00 amMaybe the real problem with that guy in the comment was that in French, he can understand the lyrics
I don't like La Femme's male lead singer voice much, and I don't think it'd be improved by switching to English. The other singer (a woman) is a lot better - Mycose compares very favorably to many New Wave Songs, even regardless of the lyrics. (*)

(*) It's about yeast infection. I find it funny. I got a sick sense of humor I guess.

I really like La Femme... I was addicted to "Amour dans le Motu" for awhile. The lyrics generally suck, but I don't expect pop songs to have great lyrics.

(I like Quellenec too, but she has such a soft voice that it kind of spoils the concert videos.)

Linguoboy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 25, 2019 11:01 amI frequently wish that European pop artists performed more in their native languages and less in English, and not just because I'm a language junkie. Often their English-language lyrics are so clunky and cliché-ridden that I want to cover my ears.

For me it's the other way around. I tend to be really annoyed by stupid lyrics in French, while I can easily ignore stupid lyrics in English. As a result, I rarely listen to French-speaking artists, apart from actually great lyricists such as Renaud or Georges Brassens. For the same reason, when I tried to write song lyrics, I couldn't do it in French (too hard: who am I, trying to follow Jean Ferrat or Jacques Brel??), but found easier to do it in English (after all neither the Beatles nor Led Zeppelin would win the Nobel Prize anytime soon).

A friend recently wrote a blog post about a similar topic.
My relation to English, bilingualism, and this blog

I've found that the consonantal root system of Arabic gives me greater clarity of thought when thinking or writing in that language. However, English allows me greater precision in what I want to say, and its flexibility in coining new words absolutely beats that of Arabic.