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Cubix wrote:For instance, why do Spanish and Italian sound very good but German (and some other germanic languages) doesn't?
Neither of these statements helps your argument in my view.uzferry wrote:I think that just like there is music that is considered to be beautiful by most and is regarded as classic, while some random static noise objectively sucks
Who are we asking?Levike wrote:Come on, Italian's always going to be considered the beautiful one when compared to Russian.
Dormouse559 wrote:Who are we asking?Levike wrote:Come on, Italian's always going to be considered the beautiful one when compared to Russian.
Dormouse559 wrote:Neither of these statements helps your argument in my view.uzferry wrote:I think that just like there is music that is considered to be beautiful by most and is regarded as classic, while some random static noise objectively sucks
"Classic" and "beautiful" aren't objective terms by any means. Their meaning is heavily dependent on culture. Maybe Beethoven's symphonies are generally considered beautiful from an affluent Western point of view. But change the perspective at all (geographic location, time period, artistic movement, class, etc.) and they may not be.
And it's apples and oranges to use random static in your analogy. Languages are by definition not random static.
But they often are. Things like race can keep one group from appreciating what another group considers beautiful. There's a long history in the United States of denigrating African American culture, simply because it's linked to black people.uzferry wrote:I doubt that the cultures are so much separate that they couldn't at least appreciate each other's art. (but I haven't done any kind of research on how similar or different the music of different cultures is and I don't really want to do it)
I'll agree that different sounds will give different levels of enjoyment. But makes the difference? I say it's the person listening. There are many objectively measurable aspects of sound, music and language, but there's no evidence that beauty is one of those.uzferry wrote:And I think random static is a good example, because it shows that there is a difference in ability to cause enjoyment between different sets of sounds - why couldn't it exist in languages, too?
How do you know that's what most people think? What does "most people" even mean? 51 percent? 60 percent? 90 percent?Levike wrote:Dormouse559 wrote:Who are we asking?Levike wrote:Come on, Italian's always going to be considered the beautiful one when compared to Russian.
Most people.
Dormouse559 wrote:I'll agree that different sounds will give different levels of enjoyment. But makes the difference? I say it's the person listening. There are many objectively measurable aspects of sound, music and language, but there's no evidence that beauty is one of those.
Dormouse559 wrote:There's a long history in the United States of denigrating African American culture, simply because it's linked to black people.
Dormouse559 wrote:How do you know that's what most people think? What does "most people" even mean? 51 percent? 60 percent? 90 percent?
To a degree, yes, but I doubt its influence is as strong as you'd like to think. Let's assume there are strong, biologically based associations humans have with combinations of sounds found in human languages, and that some combinations will normally be considered more beautiful or more ugly than others. Can you think of a reason why languages with high amounts of the ugly combinations would develop?uzferry wrote:imo beauty is all of those aspects, adjusted to provide high levels of enjoyment (for a human ear). I think it's not an actual trait or aspect, it's just a definition, a rule or something like that.
I agree that cultural differences play a big role here. But I still think there is something all the cultures have in common when talking about musical (or language) comprehension. After all, we're humans, biologically similar organisms.
That's just the thing, though. Familiarity with something tends to influence how we think about it. How familiar you are with something is often a function of culture and other factors I've already listed. If I don't like something because it's unfamiliar, should my opinion count less? No single person is intimately familiar with every language. Does that affect the validity of their opinion on language beauty?uzferry wrote:Dormouse559 wrote:There's a long history in the United States of denigrating African American culture, simply because it's linked to black people.
Isn't that just ignorance?
Evidently, but what kind of majority? 50.000000001 percent? That's no better than chance.Levike wrote:Most clearly means majority.
Our personal experiences don't prove anything.Levike wrote:I never heard anyone saying it's ugly, how many times have you seen people (even on the internet) going "But why is Italian so ugly?" as opposed to "Why is it so beautiful?".
Neither does cubix's.Levike wrote:Even cubix put it as an example for a beautiful language.
Dormouse559 wrote: Can you think of a reason why languages with high amounts of the ugly combinations would develop?
Dormouse559 wrote: Does that affect the validity of their opinion on language beauty?
Cubix wrote:To clarify the situation, I'm not really basing on statistics, but on what my friends (yes I have friends), my family think. It may be because of my culture (I'm french) that I found latin languages more "beautiful" that germanic ones. Or may be because French is a latin language too ?
Cubix wrote:Now, one could say it doesn't matter, but it's completely wrong. When us, french students, have to make the choice between Spanish and German, only a few of us choose German, and when I ask people who chose Spanish, they usually say it's because Spanish sounds way better. And I want my conlang to sound as good as possible because I want it to be attractive.
Mentilliath wrote:Certainly many languages that people cite as "unpleasant" are ones with high amounts of consonant clusters or complex syllables, as well as a multitude of velar/uvular sounds.
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