I speak it to.Zanteogo wrote:I speak drunk.
...just can't understand it.
I speak it to.Zanteogo wrote:I speak drunk.
That makes sense. After all, Dutch is one of English's closest relatives, second only to Frisian and Scots.Dinosawer wrote:Apparently Dutch is one of the easiest languages to learn for English-speaking people:
http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/grap ... -speakers/
Well, if by "Scots" you mean Lallans, OK.TheJuggler wrote:Dutch is one of English's closest relatives, second only to Frisian and Scots.
I was referring to the minor dialect of English. (I don't personally consider it a language in its own right, but since some people do I thought I'd include it anyway.)Flatfingers wrote:Well, if by "Scots" you mean Lallans, OK.TheJuggler wrote:Dutch is one of English's closest relatives, second only to Frisian and Scots.
Scots Gaelic, not so much.
(I got as far as "ciamar a tha thu?" before deciding that they were just randomly throwing letters into words to troll the Sassenachs....)
Sometimes I make jokes to that effect -- "His name is /thɑməs/, spelled with two 'q's and a '4'"Dinosawer wrote:It makes learning new words in English a bit annoying.
"Oh, this word ends in gh. I wonder if I have to pronounce that as a w or as an f?"
What dialect of English do you speak? At least in my experience:DigitalDuck wrote:English is messed up. I mean:
cough
dough
tough
plough
through
No two of those words rhyme.
Cough rhymes with goth, which sometimes rhymes with sloth, but sometimes sloth rhymes with both, which doesn't rhyme with goth or cough. Dough sounds like doe, and sometimes like do, but sometimes do rhymes with to, which sounds like too and two and doesn't rhyme with doe and dough, it rhymes with through instead. Even though dough sounds like doe, tough doesn't sound like toe; toe rhymes with doe and dough but not with tough. Plough rhymes with cow, which is spelt like tow but doesn't rhyme with tow because tow sounds like toe which rhymes with dough and not tough.
Potentially Boring Geekspeak:Dinosawer wrote:Also
Plough - ploeg
Dough - deeg
Cough - kuch
(Dutch, but the examples you have are exactly the same in Dutch)
Interesting stuff, but I still wonder why the English people started to pronounce it so oddly in the first place
TheJuggler wrote: Potentially Boring Geekspeak:
(Read at your own risk)
If I'm not mistaken, the Normans were francophones, and French became the language of status after they conquered England. Modern English pronunciation is a result of their French speech patterns merging with our Germanic ones. I'm not sure if it's a universal effect, but I know it's not unheard of for languages spoken in multilingual populations to start sounding like each other over time. Basque, for instance, is completely unrelated to Spanish (or any other known lang, for that matter), but the two languages sound very much alike to the untrained ear.
A lot of their lexicon was transferred to English, as well. That's why we say "cow" (germanic) when talking about the animal and "beef" (french) when talking about the meat -- it and other such meats were associated with the (French-speaking) nobility. Meanwhile, lesser meats such as chicken retained their germanic names because they were commonly enjoyed by the lower-class (English-speaking) natives.
It's fascinating
TheJuggler wrote: ...I think my brain is haemorrhaging.
Do on the Solfège musical scale (a.k.a. do-re-mi)TheJuggler wrote:What dialect of English do you speak? At least in my experience:
1. "Dough" never rhymes with "do"
5. "Dough" is always homophonic with "doe," never with "do"
How are you pronouncing them, then?TheJuggler wrote:2. "Cough" and "goth" definitely don't rhyme
Americans generally pronounce it with a short o (goth), Brits generally pronounce it with a long o (both).TheJuggler wrote:3. "goth" and "sloth" always rhyme
4. "Sloth" never rhymes with "both"
I don't find this boringTheJuggler wrote: Potentially Boring Geekspeak:
(Read at your own risk)
If I'm not mistaken, the Normans were francophones, and French became the language of status after they conquered England. Modern English pronunciation is a result of their French speech patterns merging with our Germanic ones. I'm not sure if it's a universal effect, but I know it's not unheard of for languages spoken in multilingual populations to start sounding like each other over time. Basque, for instance, is completely unrelated to Spanish (or any other known lang, for that matter), but the two languages sound very much alike to the untrained ear.
A lot of their lexicon was transferred to English, as well. That's why we say "cow" (germanic) when talking about the animal and "beef" (french) when talking about the meat -- it and other such meats were associated with the (French-speaking) nobility. Meanwhile, lesser meats such as chicken retained their germanic names because they were commonly enjoyed by the lower-class (English-speaking) natives.
It's fascinating
Cough - [ khɑf ]DigitalDuck wrote:How are you pronouncing them, then?TheJuggler wrote:2. "Cough" and "goth" definitely don't rhyme
Ah. This may be an example of the Cot-Caught Merger in action. I wasn't aware that you were referencing regional differences in pronunciation.DigitalDuck wrote:Americans generally pronounce it with a short o (goth), Brits generally pronounce it with a long o (both).TheJuggler wrote:3. "goth" and "sloth" always rhyme
4. "Sloth" never rhymes with "both"
We all have our niche, I suppose...Cornflakes wrote:now i feel like you
...clearly showing that I have amateurish gaps in my linguistics knowledge!Dinosawer wrote:(french pronunciation)
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