I understand there are languages in which the tone or pitch of the word affects its meaning. How do languages like this accommodate speakers who have laryngitis or other problems that may make it impossible for them to apply pitch or tone to a word?
In Spanish, what are the rules regarding the changing of the word based on Ud. or tu? When would you say, for instance, coma or come, abrelo or abralo, sientanse or sientense, fijate or fijese. In my experience, the vowel choice is not really remarked upon or considered in normal speech. At least the people I know use come (eat!) no matter to whom the phrase is directed. But if I use coma or come, they still know what I mean.
I have noticed that Spanish family members of mine tend to exaggerate in their speaking. I have noticed this as well in friends of mine who speak Italian and French. What I mean by exaggeration in speaking is that they really vocally get into whatever they’re saying…it’s hard to explain. If they feel something is unbelievable they will say “Increible!” with an almost comical exaggeration. If they are very excited, it will come through in their voice. Something like this would be seen in America as an overdramatic way of speaking. I don’t have a problem with it, I just find it unusual. If English speakers were that dramatic it would be remarked upon. Is this a peculiarity of romance languages? I just don’t see American emotions being expressed with such passion and conviction, except on Broadway.
Hebrew is a language that has a hard “ch” sound that almost sounds like one is clearing their throat. It’s been alternately described as an ugly-sounding or beautiful-sounding language. I believe it’s beautiful. But my question is which other languages have a reputation of being more mellifluous or sweet-sounding, and which ones sound legitimately harsh? By virtue of their phonetics consonants, clusters, grammar, etc. which languages sound beautiful and pleasing and which do not? Incidentally, is English viewed as a harsh sounding language by those who don’t speak it? To me, German sounds harsher than most other languages I’m familiar with due to the consonant heaviness and uncommon nature of umlaut vowels.
Finally, American English is known as a lazy language, due to diphthongs and the lazy way we say our “r” sound, etc. Are there other languages that demand such a small amount of effort? I mean, English takes the cake when it comes to saying things…you don’t have to try at all! Julie Andrews English, you know, PROPER English, puts some effort into making it similar to a romance language–a round dark sound—the “r” is now closer to “ah”, more emphasis on vowels, etc. But American English is full of diphthongs and “shortcuts”. More than any other language I’ve ever heard.
This is a misconception, that only native speakers hold. English has over twenty vowels–the exact number depends on how you want to describe them. For those whose native language has many fewer, such as Spanish, it is extremely difficult to produce those distinctions in a native-like way. There is nothing “lazy” about it. It requires a great deal of effort and vocal dexterity, especially the r-coloring your mention. Furthermore, I don’t know why you would think that English diphthongs are “lazy,” since they are comprised of stressed vowels, which require more energy to enunciate.
Hawaiian is commonly described as a “beautiful” (or similar) language, largely because of the preponderance of vowels and limited number of consonants. The entire language (as written using a subset of the English alphabet) has only 12 letters: the usual 5 vowels and 7 consonants.
I had a social studies teacher in junior high school who taught us about how laid back and peaceful the native Hawaiians were, living their idyllic lives in their island paradise (presumably this meant before the White Man came). I believed it at the time. I didn’t know – and the teacher obviously didn’t know – anything about the warlike history of the native Hawaiians.
That is not a difference between usted and tú. In both cases the second person form you are using is usted (or ustedes), but the difference is that one is the command form and the other one is the regular present tense.
In both cases you’re telling someone to eat, but not using the command (just present tense) can be seen as more polite. It all depends on context. And some may prefer to use one vs the other, or may use one according to whom they’re talking.
There is no such thing as a “lazy language”. Languages can have different accents or dialects, some more prestigious than others, but all languages are shaped by the people who speak them to convey what needs to be conveyed.
I think OP is talking about “lazy” phonetics, e.g. “bitter” being pronounced “bidr.” This has little to do with semantic capability, as long as new constructions arise to fill any gaps caused by merging.
But your point, that languages are all more-or-less equally useful for communication, is certainly a standard linguistic dogma, but it is refuted by my experience eavesdropping on (mostly rural) Thais attempting to communicate with each other (in Central Thai dialect). I’ll post detailed examples if there’s great interest, but one problem is that the lack of obligatory verb markers makes ambiguity common.
I think that if even if someone had laryngitis that they would be able to alter their pitch well enough to be understood. In these languages, it is the relative tone that matters, so as long as one’s low syllables are lower than one’s high syllables, it is comprehensible.
A foreign learner of a tonal language will certainly make a lot of mistakes with tone, but I think in most situations the context will resolve the issue.
Upon closer to all the examples given, some of the pairs seem like a difference between the command and present tense when using usted, in which the above applies, and others are indeed Ud/tu examples of the command (imperative) form.
Examples of the first type: (usted) coma (imperative) vs (usted) come (simple present, indicativo)
and (ustedes) sientanse (imperative) vs (ustedes)* sientense* (simple present, indicativo)
In which case, I don’t completely understand the question. Both refer to second person singular, and both are implicit in the verb. Do you mean they say stuff like "Usted fíjate? Because that is incorrect. Do you mean why they choose one over the other? Because they want to. Usually if they’re talking to a stranger/less closer person, they may use usted, but if they’re talking to a familiar person, they will use tú. Unless they’re in some countries that use usted for all (and weirded me out).
I’m not a linguist, but I think a better, nonjudgmental term would help describe that phenomenon. “Lazy” is a term easily used by the prestige dialect speakers to describe non-prestige speakers. But, as we all know, prestige in dialect is mostly a matter of chance. It’s not the dialect that made the people speaking it dominant-- they became dominant and transferred that dominance to their particular dialect.
That’s not quite what I was getting at. Some languages might be more ambiguous than others, or they might be ambiguous in different ways. But it’s not because the people speaking them are “lazy”. I think you would have to go out of your way to create a truly “lazy” language-- one that did not self-correct if people couldn’t get done what they needed to get done with it.
But how can you not say that speaking in Italian or Spanish and having to hold your mouth in the “o” position is not slightly more difficult than saying “owe” in American English? Pure vowels are more difficult to maintain in singing (I’m a choral director)…we choral people are always on about making sure diction and pure sound comes through when singing. American choirs (amateur ones, at least) tend to default to familiar diphthongs like ‘owe’ and stuff like “arrrr” instead of “ah”. Similarly, “Halleluyah” becomes Ha-LAY-LEW-yah, which sounds ugly. Why do singers default to this way! Because it’s easier! Unless you’re told to concentrate you’re going to sing in a way you like to, which does not include diction or proper vowels, because they are relatively harder to maintain. That’s why I think English is a lazy language. You don’t have to hold your mouth a certain way and pronounce these pure vowels.
I haven’t encountered this problem. To be clear, think of tones along the same lines as how your voice can go up in tone at the end of a sentence that is a question. I can’t think of a situation where someone is unable to do that because of some vocal issue.
The exception is singing, of course. I was never good at figuring out lyrics of any complexity.
Thanks. All I was saying is that at some point I remember learning that coma and come for example were different, in that the first was imperative directed toward Ud. You had to change the ending to an a when it was a verb ending in -er. And change to an e when the verb ended in -ar. And the second one was also imperative but because it’s directed towards tu, you can keep the ending consistent. (I.E. Nada for nadar, abre for abrir, para for parar). Am I misremembering?
Incidentally, from what I hear the vowels at the ends of imperatives are so quickly spoken or swallowed that it becomes difficult to discern whether you are hearing cierra la puerta or cierre la puerta. Either way it doesn’t affect meaning.
Maybe it is the difference between the native speaker and non-native speaker, but as a non-native speaker of English, English vowels (and consonants too, man) trip me up, where I have no problems pronouncing the vowels in Spanish correctly (I have no problem pronouncing them in Portuguese either, and just a bit trouble pronouncing them in French). Similar, I’m guessing a native French speaker may have no problem pronouncing the French vowels but may have some issues with other languages.
I don’t know a whole lot about singing, but pure vowel is not a meaningful term in linguistics. You probably mean stressed vowel. English has all the stressed vowels of Spanish, and then some more, so if anything, it’s less lazy, because one has to master many more variations of the motor-physics.
Right, as I noted in the second post. This is about the OP’s subjective perception.
It is still a bit confusing, at least to me. The rules (the answer to your first question?) are similar to what you mentioned, at least in the terms of imperatives. To your second question:
The answer is context and to whom you’re speaking and what are you trying to say.
I already mentioned coma and come, they are either both imperative but tu/ud, or one present tense and one imperative form for usted.
Ábralo or ábrelo, again, they mean the same. If you’re talking to someone who is a stranger/higher up, you’re more likely to use the first one. Close person, the second one.
Sientanse and sientense are for ustedes, in both imperative and present indicative. Discussed it above.
As a native Spanish speaker, English vowel sounds are very hard for me. Things such as the distinction between short and long vowels do not exist in Spanish. Not to mention other issues like the th sound, or the difference between j and y.
Exactly. In the USofA it is not uncommon for someone to ask, “How do you spell your name”? Here in Mexico, I have never heard that question asked. The vowels here don’t change sounds. There is no long and short vowels.
Sometimes, a linguist or phonetician may use “pure vowel” to simply mean a monophthong.
Pianodave is right – in American English, and I believe in most dialects of Great Britain and Ireland, the so-called “long o” is a diphthong starting about where Spanish /o/ is pronounced and ending a little lower than where Spanish /u/ is pronounced. The Spanish “o”, meanwhile, starts and finishes in about the same spot … the tongue doesn’t move much during the vowel’s production.
That said, I’d say that pianodave is in error about the diphthongized English “long o” being easier to pronounce than Latin/Spanish/Italian/etc. monophthong “o”. He thinks his singers are being “lazy” as they introduce the English “long o” into their singing. But it’s not a matter of one sound being easy and the other difficult. It’s a matter of familiarity, and of a person’s native language influencing the production of sounds in general … either sounds in another language or specialized sounds produced when singing (e.g., chorus).
I guess pianodave could say that his singers are being lazy if they aren’t practicing their choral parts enough, or in the right way, to nail the required vowel sounds. But the fact that the singers may revert to English vowels says nothing about the intrinsic ease or difficulty of producing the vowels themselves.