On 7/12/2011 1:09, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> No, see, you're thinking that the English language follows some kind of
>> *logic*.
>
>    The most logical aspect of English is the pronounciation.

It's also the only language I know where the accent (as in stress) moving 
from syllable to syllable changes the parts of speech of the word.

We will progress, and thereby make progress.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 7/12/2011 1:34, Warp wrote:
>    Btw, Spanish is another language where you know how to pronounce written
> words unambiguously, even without context or previous knowledge.

That's because in the 1600's (1670? 1640?) one of the bishops basically said 
"Screw this - here's how people will now spell stuff in spanish..."

> between letters and how they are pronounced.

Technically, there isn't a 1-to-1 correspondence between letters and 
characters, either.  "ll" is one character, yes?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 7/12/2011 4:32, Warp wrote:
>    How does any language deal with foreign words?

You haven't looked into Chinese a lot, have you? :-)

>    If a foreign name cannot be changed (eg. because it's a proper name, eg.
> the name of a person or a company), then it's just written as it is (if the
> name happens to have some letter not in the Finnish alphabet, then how it's
> dealt with varies from medium to medium and person to person).

In Chinese, they pick characters that are pronounced similarly but have a 
particular meaning. For example, "coca cola" in Chinese might be spelled in 
a way that sounds like "coca cola" and means "tasty sweet water" or some 
such. Something that always amuses me.

They do this with famous people, too.

> (Britons would have a fun time watching a Finn trying to pronounce
> "Worcestershire".)

Everyone has fun watching people say that one. ;-)

There's a saying in the USA:
In Texas, "yep" is three syllables. In Boston, "Worcestershire" is one.

>    I have never heard "hombre" pronounced any differently from (the
> fictitious word) "ombre". (I have lived in Spain for 12 years.) I don't
> know if it's different in Latin America.

The only time I've heard the "h" pronounced there is when it's a Latino 
person making fun of a non-Latino. Sort of like a black man distinguishing 
"nigger" from "nigga" or something.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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> On 12/07/2011 04:22 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:

>>> On 08/07/2011 07:15 PM, nemesis wrote:
>>>
>>>> Oh, and BTW, those verses... yeah, I can now understand why you can't
>>>> stand
>>>> poetry if such obtuse lines are all you can grasp of it...
>>>
>>> As should be obvious, this is not poetry. This is lyrics. ;-)
>>
>> And the difference is?
>
> Lyrics can be in an unintelligible language and still be delightful.

Poetry can also be in a totaly unknown language, even an imaginary one, 
and be delightful.

In this case, for both lyrics and poetry, it's the rythm and sound 
aesthetic that count, not the meaning.

Anyway, lyrics ARE poetry! If you add music to any poem, it becomes a song.
Pure poetry is recited, lyrics are sung on a melody, with or without 
instrumental music.

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>>> Lyrics can be in an unintelligible language and still be delightful.
>>
>> And poetry can't?
>
> I can only say this: I've yet to find any poetry that evokes anything
> other than boredom. This does not preclude the possibility of good
> poetry existing; it just makes me rather disinclined to search for it.
>

Take the lyrics of almost any song, remove the music and you get a poem.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Technically, there isn't a 1-to-1 correspondence between letters and 
> characters, either.  "ll" is one character, yes?

  In my experience the practice varied. *Technically* speaking, at least
according to archaic Spanish grammar, "ch" and "ll" were their own
independent letters of the alphabet. In practice, however, you nowadays
seldom see them written separately in alphabets. In my experience this is
happened first to "ll", and then to "ch" (sometimes in some alphabets you
could see "ch" as its own letter but not "ll"). I don't know how official
this is, but in practice they have lost their status as separate independent
letters. (Possibly the popularization of keyboards has helped this, although
I think this trend started earlier.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> The most logical aspect of English is the pronounciation.
>
> It's also the only language I know where the accent (as in stress)
> moving from syllable to syllable changes the parts of speech of the word.

There's an urban myth that in Chinese, the pitch of the word dictates 
which word it is...

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> Take the lyrics of almost any song, remove the music and you get a poem.

Yes. And typically not a very good one.

(If you actually sit down and think about it, it's surprising how many 
songs have lyrics which don't actually /make sense/ either.)

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On 13/07/2011 01:33 AM, Alain wrote:

> Anyway, lyrics ARE poetry! If you add music to any poem, it becomes a song.

Interesting fact: Take Growltiger's Last Stand, by T. S. Elliot. It's 
fairly boring. Get Andrew Lloyd Webber to set it to music, and suddenly 
it's an epic masterpiece.

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> The most logical aspect of English is the pronounciation.
> >
> > It's also the only language I know where the accent (as in stress)
> > moving from syllable to syllable changes the parts of speech of the word.

> There's an urban myth that in Chinese, the pitch of the word dictates 
> which word it is...

  I'm not sure you have go the meaning of "urban myth" right.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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