Idiots, and all that

[swatkat]

I have been reading this old wank in fanficrants (it's long - summary is in F_W) for quite a while now, and I'm not sure what exactly it is that I want to do - laugh or hit her on the head with a volume of the OED. Both, probably. My favourite quote, though:So now you're saying that people go to college to Learn To Think? o_o

Also, I'm genuinely curious about this one - why do people insist on calling the English language 'not beautiful'? Of course, this idiot poster called French and Japanese 'pretty languages', but I've heard this from many sane, intelligent people as well. It is beautiful! Sure, it's 'harsh' and masculine and not melodious in the way, say, Sanskrit is, but it *is* a beautiful language. Why must you deride your mother tongue so?

Comments

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

Oh, you make a lot of sense! LOL

I'm afraid I don't understand a word of Tamil (although I would like to learn one day), but I do agree it isn't melodious in the way Hindi (or most of the languages derived from Sanskrit) is.

Swatkat

[fernwithy.livejournal.com]

Really? I hear music every time I read good English prose, and I judge writing by whether or not it seems to have the melody right. I find it odd to think of English as not being a melodious language.

[swatkat24.livejournal.com]

The way I see it - every language has its own melody. English is harsh (in the sense that it has hard, masculine endings) and terse (because of the monosyllables) in comparison to many other languages, so it may not appear melodious to some ears in comparison to, say, Sanskrit (with its softer sounds and vowel endings). In the end, it depends upon personal preferences, I guess.

I judge writing by whether or not it seems to have the melody right.

Oh, I often do the same thing - even more so when it's something I've written.

Swatkat

[jaybee65.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think there's a certain harshness in English that affects how I think of it aesthetically. (Japanese and Korean, for example, also strike me as quite harsh.) By way of comparison, I would perhaps pick Thai as a good example of what, to *me*, would be a melodious-sounding language. But it all boils down to personal taste in the end, doesn't it?

It's been really fun reading people's opinions on this.