Ugliest language

[vijayjohn]

Some languages have definitely been more influenced by other languages than Finnish has been by IE languages, but I don't know of any other cases where at least a third of Swadesh list words have been gradually replaced

I think this may be true of Malayalam, for example (but I'd have to check to make sure. Also, which Swadesh list? There's more than one. Incidentally, this is the sort of thing that's so problematic about the Swadesh list).

(and potentially many more, since many have unknown etymologies) and sentence structures have become more or less identical to English, a pronoun that's vaguely similar to the English definite article has been extended to be practically used as a definite article as well (at least informally, increasingly formally as well), and on top of that some likely native words with unclear etymology have come to be interpreted as certain loanwords simply for prestige.

Nevahööd of any of this.

[Lur]

Wait, wait. I don't get it. Finnish nationalists want the language to be more like other languages? What?

Also what is that "definite article"?

(The syntax doesn't seem "English" to me from the outside, but maybe I don't know enough)

I just keep thinking how something like Japanese can have like two thirds of vocabulary and certains sounds of foreign origin (a situation that may be typical of small languages bordering on big, prestigious empires/languages?) but we don't think of it that way because the language has a prestige the way it is...

[Vlürch]

Some languages have definitely been more influenced by other languages than Finnish has been by IE languages, but I don't know of any other cases where at least a third of Swadesh list words have been gradually replaced

I think this may be true of Malayalam, for example (but I'd have to check to make sure. Also, which Swadesh list? There's more than one. Incidentally, this is the sort of thing that's so problematic about the Swadesh list).

Presumably all of them. Also, remember how you once told me there's only the Swadesh list when I mentioned "a Swadesh list"? I'm still not sure why they can't each be a Swdaesh list.

Nevahööd of any of this.

All these tongue emoticons...

Wait, wait. I don't get it. Finnish nationalists want the language to be more like other languages? What?

Yeah, because a lot of "Finnish nationalists" are actually ethnic Swedes or Russians, or Finns who took Swedish (or rarely Russian) names and started identifying as "Nordic". Most Finns don't really care about nationalism, so the ones that do are often heavily influenced by Swedish and/or Russian nationalism; there are actual Finnish nationalists who don't want Finland to become more like Sweden or Russia, too, of course, but most of them are idiots as well.

Anyway, the early Finnish nationalists basically concultured modern Finland into existence. Unsurprisingly, they were mostly Swedish, German and Russian rather than Finnish... I'm fine with the fact that Finland was basically a concountry and a big part of its culture was invented by non-Finns with influences from Swedish and Russian culture, but it pisses me off that the next generation of nationalists didn't keep making shit up or looking into Turanism and instead started building a "Nordic narrative" influenced by white supremacy.

Also what is that "definite article"?

The third-person inanimate pronoun se, literally "it". It's often used like the English definite article "the", although there are subtle differences and it's obviously not the only thing it's used for (eg. it's also equivalent to "that"); I'm pretty sure it'll never be transformed into an exclusive definite article because it's informally used to refer to humans as well, so no matter how much Finnish ends up being influenced by English, it won't go that far. Still, for example "se peruna" could mean both "that potato" and "the potato" depending on the context; it couldn't mean "this potato", though. Anyway, it could be used in advertising as a tag or whatever, "se peruna", with the implication "the potato" (as in the best potato), etc.

(The syntax doesn't seem "English" to me from the outside, but maybe I don't know enough)

Well, technically it's possible to have completely "un-English" or even "anti-Indo-European" sentences, especially in formal writing, but informally those would sound unnatural.

I just keep thinking how something like Japanese can have like two thirds of vocabulary and certains sounds of foreign origin (a situation that may be typical of small languages bordering on big, prestigious empires/languages?) but we don't think of it that way because the language has a prestige the way it is...

Mmm, true...

[Saim]

The third-person inanimate pronoun se, literally "it". It's often used like the English definite article "the", although there are subtle differences and it's obviously not the only thing it's used for (eg. it's also equivalent to "that"); I'm pretty sure it'll never be transformed into an exclusive definite article because it's informally used to refer to humans as well, so no matter how much Finnish ends up being influenced by English, it won't go that far. Still, for example "se peruna" could mean both "that potato" and "the potato" depending on the context; it couldn't mean "this potato", though. Anyway, it could be used in advertising as a tag or whatever, "se peruna", with the implication "the potato" (as in the best potato), etc.

Hungarian went through essentially the same development hundreds of years ago and the way they resolved this ambiguity was to use reduplication:

az iskola - the school
az az iskola - that school

a tény - the fact
az a tény - that fact

[vijayjohn]

Some languages have definitely been more influenced by other languages than Finnish has been by IE languages, but I don't know of any other cases where at least a third of Swadesh list words have been gradually replaced

I think this may be true of Malayalam, for example (but I'd have to check to make sure. Also, which Swadesh list? There's more than one. Incidentally, this is the sort of thing that's so problematic about the Swadesh list).

Presumably all of them. Also, remember how you once told me there's only the Swadesh list when I mentioned "a Swadesh list"? I'm still not sure why they can't each be a Swdaesh list.

Oh, well...there are lists of different sizes. Not a whole lot of them, but there are a few different versions.

[Lur]

I wonder what the etymologies for those lists look like for Basque (which is a much less conservative language than Finnish I think)

I once read someone say that the negative structure in Basque is a IE loan and that it used to retain the SOV order in negative sentences using a negative prefix in the verb (possibly the root in the verb ken)

One thing to think about those list: just because you have an outside innovation (like, I dunno, aurinko, maybe?), it doesn't mean the other word no longer exists in one of its various meanings... Then you have stuff like prepositions in the list which might correspond to unused or shifted cases or apositions...

[vijayjohn]

I wonder whether there are any Swadesh list threads. If not, maybe I should make one?

[Lur]

I like those if only to learn basic words.

The stuff said about Finnish nationalists is reminding me of the rather weird way they assembled the Kalevala, like a sort of made up pro-Christian thing divorced often in themes and connections from the source materials.

[Moritz]

I also have to say that I disagree with those that say Arabic, just because of some commonly considered "harsh" sounds

Again, intonation often is underrated when it comes to rating a language, and Arabic sounds quite "alive" IMO. I like the rhythm, and I like even the instances of "harsh" sounds (the real uvular ones do not appear that excessively, compared to pharyngeal and uvularized ones), they make it typical. It's a "no bullshit" language, like Russian, which is why I like both
I'm talking about standard/mediatic Arabic, I don't know enough about local variants.

And BTW I think many are influenced by stereotypes and similar, which is why sometimes people see Levantine Arabic as inherently better than let's say, Gulf Arabic, even if sometimes the difference is not so giant

[Clearlanguage]

In a European context, many Slavic languages (aside from Russian and Bulgarian) have always this "Slavic" flat intonation to them, which sounds a bit cold and a bit boring: and the addition of "strange" consonant clusters doesn't help

While there are some exceptions among the Romance and (even) the Germanic languages, these sound more varied, there's something that makes these languages more alive in their intonation (intonation is often a factor understated when it comes to categorising a language)
I despise when people categorise the likes of the Germanic languages as ugly, for instance, just because of the likes of "flat" German: you get lively Swedish and Norwegian, "cool" English, heck, I even like Dutch, which except for the high frequency of uvular sounds doesn't sound that bad

Anyways, that's only my opinion: each language has its pro and cons

I see not even you likes german though

[Eireannach]

I would say a pretty ugly sounding language is Afrikaans, as it is a very guttural language. I still want to learn Afrikaans however, as I have a fairly guttural voice and think it would be a great combination!

[linguoboy]

I would say a pretty ugly sounding language is Afrikaans, as it is a very guttural language.

What does that mean exactly?

[vijayjohn]

I would say a pretty ugly sounding language is Afrikaans, as it is a very guttural language.

What does that mean exactly?

Oh no, not "guttural" again! God forbid a language should have dorsal fricatives! The horror!

[Eireannach]

I would say a pretty ugly sounding language is Afrikaans, as it is a very guttural language.

What does that mean exactly?

By Guttural, I mean the harsher tones and I believe Velar frictives (I need to brush up on my terminology) that I as a native British English speaker are very unused to. I could pick a larger number of guttural languages, even Irish for example, but I have had more exposure to Afrikaans than other guttural languages so it's the one that stuck out in my head.

[Eireannach]

I would say a pretty ugly sounding language is Afrikaans, as it is a very guttural language.

What does that mean exactly?

Oh no, not "guttural" again! God forbid a language should have dorsal fricatives! The horror!

They may not be beautiful to my ears, but they do sound pretty badass

[nijk]

I would say a pretty ugly sounding language is Afrikaans, as it is a very guttural language.

What does that mean exactly?

By Guttural, I mean the harsher tones and I believe Velar frictives (I need to brush up on my terminology) that I as a native British English speaker are very unused to.

You just have to talk with someone from Liverpool to get used to them.

BTW, British English is also a very "guttural" language considering all the glottal stops that it has. (bo'ohw'o'wo'er)

[vijayjohn]

I would say a pretty ugly sounding language is Afrikaans, as it is a very guttural language.

What does that mean exactly?

By Guttural, I mean the harsher tones

I have had more exposure to Afrikaans

Why is that? Are there a lot of Afrikaans-speakers near where you live?

[linguoboy]

By Guttural, I mean the harsher tones and I believe Velar frictives (I need to brush up on my terminology) that I as a native British English speaker are very unused to. I could pick a larger number of guttural languages, even Irish for example, but I have had more exposure to Afrikaans than other guttural languages so it's the one that stuck out in my head.

See, what amuses me about this term is that contemporary French has an uvuluar fricative which is often realised as velar but I seldom hear it described as "guttural". That description only seems to be applied to languages widely considered "ugly", where it is tautologically considered evidence of their supposed ugliness. As you say, Irish is rich in velgar fricatives but like French it's stereotyped as "beautiful" so I rarely hear anyone ever call it "guttural".

[Rí.na.dTeangacha]

As you say, Irish is rich in velgar fricatives but like French it's stereotyped as "beautiful"

That's not a stereotype I'm familiar with. Is that the American view? I'd have thought most Americans would either not have heard much if any Irish, or more likely never even heard of it.

[linguoboy]

As you say, Irish is rich in velgar fricatives but like French it's stereotyped as "beautiful"

That's not a stereotype I'm familiar with. Is that the American view? I'd have thought most Americans would either not have heard much if any Irish, or more likely never even heard of it.

I would say this view is very widespread in the USA. IME, most USAmericans have heard little, if any, spoken Irish but most are acquainted with sung Irish due to the success of musical artists who have recorded songs in Irish, such as Enya, Celtic Woman, Clannad, and others.