Omniglot forum • View topic

Dennis · **Posted:** Mon 31 Aug 2009 9:55 am

Batavo is from Batavus (latin) for people who lived where I live now

Benelux won't do, the Benelux is a name for Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg combined. Dutch is spoken in Belgium and the Netherlands, but they speak French and German in Belgium and Luxembourgish in Luxembourg.

Sobekhotep · **Posted:** Tue 01 Sep 2009 2:38 am

Talib wrote:

Dutch speakers use a lot of different rhotics. Some use a uvular sound like in German.

True, but in Standaardnederlands it's supposed to be an alveolar trill.

Talib · Joined:Sun 19 Apr 2009 8:22 am Posts:768 Location: Canada

I've noticed many people tend to have a great deal of difficulty mastering the alveolar trill though (in any language) so he might just use whatever rhotic he's accustomed to using in his native dialect when speaking standard Dutch.

Sobekhotep · **Posted:** Wed 02 Sep 2009 5:31 am

Talib wrote:

I've noticed many people tend to have a great deal of difficulty mastering the alveolar trill though (in any language)

Hmm. Of all the Spanish, Russian, Thai & Indonesian speakers I've met, none of them had any difficulty producing the sound.

Talib · Joined:Sun 19 Apr 2009 8:22 am Posts:768 Location: Canada

Native speakers, no, but learners do.

And it's typically the last sound mastered for languages that do have it, I believe.

For such a common sound, it's quite tricky!

Neqitan · Joined:Fri 17 Apr 2009 9:59 pm Posts:397 Location: Canada

Talib wrote:

And it's typically the last sound mastered for languages that do have it, I believe.

Yes it is.

But for some reason I was different and took a long while to find out how to pronounce [ɾ] (the flap) instead—I finally did until I was around 10. :oops:

Until then I preferred to use sin embargo instead of pero, cotorra instead of perico/loro, pendiente instead of arito, and other workarounds that made my speech sound funny to other Salvadorans.

Stosis · Joined:Sun 19 Apr 2009 11:32 am Posts:71

A rolled r is a hard sound to make but keep in mind that most learners of any language seem to have trouble with rhotics. Just listen to a Chinese speaker. Or even a Spanish speaker learning English. Many Spanish speakers continue to roll their r's just like how English speakers use their version.

My Latin professor told me that speakers of early Latin had trouble when their language evolved a distinction between L's and R's. And this is the reason for the words Terra and Tellus, both meaning earth. What's the point of this? I'm just trying to say that rhotics are tricky fickle consonants.

Sobekhotep · **Posted:** Tue 08 Sep 2009 2:39 am

Stosis wrote:

a Spanish speaker learning English. Many Spanish speakers continue to roll their r's

This would be fine if they were living in Scotland or Ireland.

Neqitan · Joined:Fri 17 Apr 2009 9:59 pm Posts:397 Location: Canada

Sobekhotep wrote:

Anders wrote:

Sobekhotep wrote:

I'm really curious as to what the language between Finnish & Romanian is.

It's Georgian at Nr 4

It is Georgian! I never would have guessed that! The ejectives are not obvious, at least not to me. I always imagined they'd be easily identifiable. And where are all the consonant clusters I've heard horror stories about?!

Beautiful language. Not what I expected after reading about it on paper.
I'd also like to point out that the Georgian word for "human being" seems to be related to Hebrew's <אדם> (adam). 8-)

Wow, I watched the video again after Imbecilica reposted the link in the other thread, and I'm impressed. Beautiful language, specially the intonation.

That, or maybe it's just that I'd never heard Georgian before so I find this weird intonation very pleasing. It reminds me of the first time I heard Nahuatl, Fijian and Hawai'ian spoken.