On Tue, 26 Jan 2016 17:51:55 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 1/26/2016 3:16 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 26 Jan 2016 08:38:43 +0100, clipka wrote:
>>
>>>> True, then again, you could always try something like Gaelic.
>>>
>>> Well... I /vaguely/ recall having mention Irish ;)
>>
>> Which is not quite the same as Gaelic - or rather, Gaelic languages (6
>> living langauges, a few mixed, and a few nearly dead languages - I know
>> someone who's one of about 5 people in the world who speak one
>> particular dialect - in Scotland).
>>
>>
> About 20 years ago I was on a rig where the OIM had been to the funeral
> of the last Doric, of a certain type, speaker.

I need to find out from Alistair what it is that he speaks.  He said 
there's one other person in the town he lives in who speaks it.  
Fortunately, they get along. :)

>> Welsh actually is one of those languages, as is Irish.  Breton, Scotish
>> Gaelic, Cornish, and Manx are the other living languages.
>>
>>
> Irish, are you talking about Irish Gaelic?

Yes, sorry, I should have been clear on that.

>> I can't tell you how many people mispronounce my cats' names - which
>> are Manx Gaelic (and actually, relatively simple names to pronounce).
>>
>>
> That supriseses me. :-P

Which part of it?

That they're simple names to pronounce?

>>>> Or for a challenge, try a non-Romanized language; Russian, Polish,
>>>> Hungarian (is quite interesting), Japanese, Chinese, or another
>>>> similar language. :)
>>>
>>> I think aside from Chinese (for rather obvious reasons) neither of
>>> them can cope with Irish when it comes to leaving the reader puzzled
>>> as to how an unfamiliar written word is spoken or vice versa, even
>>> when said reader is well-versed in the script(*) used.
>>
>> Arguably, English itself has some oddities that make pronunciation
>> difficult for non-native speakers to use.
>>
>>
> Ah! remember who you are speaking to.
> Being bi-lingual, adds complications.

Very true. :)

>> For example, the made-up word 'ghoti' is often used to describe the
>> idiosyncrasies of English pronunciation.  (The actual pronunciation of
>> that made-up word is "fish" - gh from 'tough', o from 'women', ti from
>> 'nation').
>>
>>
> A case of the parts adding to more than the sun of the whoke. :)

Basically, yes.  :)

>>> That's because Irish is exceptionally unconventional in how it uses
>>> the latin script to render the language's phonemes.
>>
>> Another that strikes me as in a similar class is Catalan - though a
>> fair amount of the 'misunderstanding' of Catalan vs. European Spanish
>> is less a lack of understanding based on mispronunciation and more what
>> some might just term as 'dickishness'. :)
>>
> Watch it ot ETA will come to get you. :P

LOL, ain't that the truth.  It didn't occur to me that I was speaking 
Spanish (poorly) when I was in Barcelona, and I thought my Spanish 
pronunciation was just a little rusty when a shopkeeper couldn't 
understand me.  So I tried more slowly, and she "understood", and replied 
full speed to my inquiry, even after it was apparent that I wasn't 
speaking the same language she was.

¿Tiene libros de fotografías?

and

Té llibres de fotografies?

Are not that far off from each other, but far enough, I think, to inform 
the native-speaker that responding at native speed wouldn't be helpful - 
and an answer that involves complex directions to a store elsewhere in 
the shops probably wasn't going to be understood.

I found what I was looking for, eventually, anyways, so no harm done.

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

Post a reply to this message