![]() Spiegel, mirror in German (like the newspaper Der Spiegel.) I eventually realized that there are German words from Latin.įenestra, window in Latin. German absolutely baffles me even though English is a Germanic language. I got as far as "ni hao" which is "hello". Started a once a month group to learn Chinese after I bought a book of characters. In English word order is important because you don't have many forms of words, and even then it's easy to get confused in pronouns. With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship. In Italian you have 3-a, e, i.Īnd you can put subject-object-verb together which is used in older forms of English, like the Book of Common Prayer. In Latin you have 5 declensions-a, e, i, io, eo. You know the declension by the middle vowel in the verb, and the ending tells you the person. l love Romance languages b/c they are so logical. I can speak some complete sentences in Spanish from living in Texas and absorbing some. I took singing lessons and learned mostly Italian and French, a bit of German. And the British rock music of the 60s in my view borrowed from the jazz and blues music which then freed British music and permitted the pop musicians to express their own linguistic heritage in music.īut I am just talking about my impressions and it may interest no one. But I think it is interesting that, at least in my view, that is what freed our music from the European music that is based on the European languages and grew out of them. The African-American origins of jazz are of course evident. Hilarious at times.Įnglish - well I think that jazz is the music that most sounds like American English. It's really funny and then it is mixed in with those rhythmic, guttural sounds. Austrians speak in a sing-song very often. I really love hearing and speaking German because I think it is such a funny language. In my view it is not as musical as is Italian and not at all as rhythmic (maybe bombastic would be a better word) as German. If you listen to French classical music you hear the flow of the language. Could that be because Austria lies between Germany and Italy? I don't know but it is another of my crazy theories. While Austrians speak German, they speak it in a more melodious way. And that is like Italian if you listen to it spoken. Of course, Verdi used big chords and percussion for effect, but more for explosive dramatic effect. German is consonant, guttural consonant driven, so we get Beethoven with his big chords and rhythms. Italian is so melodious because it is a vowel-driven language. I have a theory which may be totally wrong, but still, it is that the music of a country or people tends to imitate or be based upon the language. I guess that is why it is a language in which the music is so melodic. I sang in Italian, and the language is phonetic at least much more so than English so you can catch on if you read and try to pronounce the words. It's tiresome to look the same words up over and over, and you begin to catch on. Reading in the language can develop vocabulary. ![]() ![]() Maybe singing along you could learn some. We in the US are fortunate that English is so widely accepted as 'the' universal language, but knowing other languages is SO helpful in many ways. I have learned to be respectful of languages and a couple and I were looking at a display in a window and I wanted to ask them the origin of the artwork and I said, 'Excuse me, do you speak English?' and the guy looked at me with an expression of wonderment at my stupidity (in a nice way!) and said 'Of course.' Which made me laugh and he did, too. When I saw in Sweden last year for work, I noticed the same thing. If we want to talk to anyone else, it must be in English.' Color me DUH! I was pleasantly surprised that when I went to Portugal I could understand written Portuguese pretty well (I did study it for one year in college) but as far as spoken? Yikes!Įven as 'worldly' as I consider myself, when I was in Denmark, on a train, chatting w/a young couple, I remarked that I was so grateful that English is so widely spoken and the man said, 'We are only five million people. It's been a looooong time but I still can do OK when I travel. 匜 半挿 /(n) (1) (esp.I was a language major and later taught HS French and Spanish. 劓 /(n) (arch) (See 五刑) cutting off the nose (form of punishment in ancient China)/EntL2542140/ 剕 /(n) (arch) (See 五刑) cutting off the leg at the knee (form of punishment in ancient China)/EntL2542150/ ![]()
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