Even though we only write 5 vowels, English has as many as 15 vowel sounds! (this can vary depending on dialect)
What's useful about the consonants and vowels of a language?
Although French has nasalized vowels, making them difficult to pronounce for many English speakers, French is a very musical language. This is because words tend to flow from one word to the next with no pause in between them. In situations where there would be a pause, French requires that sounds be added or words changed. This is known as liaison.
Spanish has a lot of vowels and could be considered a musical language.
Even more so, Italian is considered the traditional musical language. This is due to the fact that most words end in a vowel. Not only does this make it a very suitable language for opera, it also means that once you are familiar with its rhythms, it is a comparatively easy language to pronounce. Unlike English, Italian has predictable pronunciation. Every letter has a specific sound, and there is not much difference between Italian spelling and pronunciation.
On the other hand, German does not really sound musical. Long word lengths, hard sounds for the consonants, plus many consonant clusters make the language difficult.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Vowels and musical languages
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578 comments:
What about Hebrew? Is it also a musical language? I always thought Hebrew sounds a bit like French.
Great way to describe it. I speak french and english and I find that sometimes a confusing thing about french for people is how all the words run together, good for music not necessarily good for beginners.
Great post dude !!! but do u really know all these languages? actually i have site which is helpful to learn Japanese. This language is very difficult to pronounce as compared to other musical languages.
I didn't hear Hebrew. but i am surprised by reading this post that you know all this five language!
I always thought Hebrew sounds a bit like French.
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This article brings back memories of the Psychology of Language class I took at UT Austin.
Thai has as many as 32 vowels, but have you heard many songs in Thai? Especially compared to thousands songs in english language :)
I studied French and Spanish in High School and always thought of French as the more beautiful of the two. Never thought of it in terms of music. Interesting perspective.
I always found German a much easier language than French, since my accent was just not right for nasal romance languages. However, then I got sinitus and now I can do nasal pretty well.
It's true. All these Germans I've seen in movies bark like dogs. I'm sure that's how Germans normally speak.
Italian is indeed a musical language. There's some sort of passion in it.
Bengali is also a Musical language.There is some words in this language that are very nice.
I thought English has only 5 vowels and 2 semi-vowel. But 15??
There are many languages which are musical.I read in a book that Bangla(The language of Bangladesh) has 11 vowel. and it is very melodious.
if you know these languages then I'm very very jealous! :)
I took French for years and years. However, I was never able to speak very well. Apparently, this is because I am unable (genetically apparently) to curl my tongue. Now, here is my question. I know being unable to curl/roll your tongue is a recessive trait, but what happens to the French people with this trait!!!!
I also have heard about the language of bengal. They really do have 11 vowels in their language.
Must be one of the hardest language.
Actually i think every language have had their own style and as English is the international we all are use to it. And about other language i do not know much about them.
I think after reading this post everybody will think about language.In every language there are some musical words.
Italian is indeed a musical language. There's some sort of passion in it.
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Hebrew is a cool language, some of my family friends can speak hebrew, it has a very interesting sound to it.
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The Germans are based and instrument rock music, they don't have an good vocalize...
In every language there are some musical words.In the African language also.
Interesting point: I often train people who are making presentations in English but who have that as a second language. It's certainly my experience that native Italian speakers and French sound much more lyrical than native German speakers.
The worst case, of course, is when they have to think in their native tongue and translate it inside their heads: they seem to speak with a stronger accent than those who can 'think' in English.
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I learned a lot from your post! Very interesting and thanks for sharing! Your knowledge is very impressive!
As far as I know that the south asian languages are one of the most musical languages. I am not too much sure about this.
That is very much right. The south asian languages are very much musical language. they have more then 10 vowels in each languages.
This language is very difficult to pronounce as compared to other musical languages. Thai has as many as 32 vowels, but have you heard many songs in Thai?
i have site which is helpful to learn Japanese. This language is very difficult to pronounce as compared to other musical languages.
I truly believe any language can be a musical language. It is all in how you choose to hear it.
English is a so easy language that contain only 5 vowels but Bengali language is contains 11 vowels.
ya I know the Bengali language, it has 11 vowels but it not so hard language its so easy one.
Interesting perspective.
Thanks for bringing such a nice post to the fore. Well I like Spanish, its sounds really good, I would love to learn it :)
TV Bracket have some good points there.. All language can be musical.. But real challenge is due to the consistency between basic pronounciation and sentence spelling.. German sure has multiple consonants, but the spellings are generally consistent as Italian..
German is difficult for whom? It's easy enough for the Germans...
Music is such a part of our lives. So many listen to it everyday! Great article.
People who can sing in any language make it musical!
intresting, would not have thought about it that way myself.
Every language has its own way of style and music.
Great Post!!
Keep 'em coming..
I love Italian Language due to its musical accent. I enjoyed listening "pavarotti" the famous "nessun Dohrma". I have seen many of his performance with "James Brown". I think Italian is very impressive language in musical way.
I am not an english person but I think vowels are much easier in english then so many languages.
There are some asian languages which are much musical then english. They are tough too.
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I always thought that German sounded like a harsh language, even though its people are very kind.
Being a vocalist, it easy to tell which language is musical. Like the blog said, Italian is the most musical language. It is easier to pronounce and flows better of the tongue. French is alright, but I would much rather sing in Italian; even though one of my favorite pieces I have done has been in French.
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Thanks for sharing such a nice post. I like Spanish, its sounds really good, I would love to learn it :)
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Anyway, french rap is a little weird sounding..... lol.....
Italian is indeed a musical language. There's some sort of passion in it .
English doesn't have a single letter to represent the initial sound ("ch") of the word child, so it must use two letters. Recognizing a digraph is one of the many difficulties in learning a language. For example, take the "ch" sound as mentioned above. One CANNOT simply read it as "a 'c' sound followed by an 'h' sound" - it is a completely different sound altogether.
I didn't know it was a musical language.
I always thought Italian was such a passionate language...I bet that is why operas are still conducted in Italian.
What about French? It's a sexy language.
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Italian is indeed a musical language. There's some sort of passion in it .
My 6 years old little daughter is very much interested about vowel and consonant.I like to say her bout this.
Great way to describe it. I speak french and english and I find that sometimes a confusing thing about french for people is how all the words run together,
German has a lot of vowels a,e,i,o,u, ä, ö, ü and also diaerisis au, eu, äu, ei, ie
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That's really great read for me, always enjoying your posts.
That is the beauty of variety of languages and all of them have their own styles.
this kind of things are my interest of what I want to learn. in my opinion, this will really help a lot on your self improvement and development especially if you are a speaker or even a writer can benefit on this one.
I speak french and english and I find that sometimes a confusing thing about french for people is how all the words run together, good for music not necessarily good for beginners.
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But I always found German a much easier language than English :)
i have site which is helpful to learn Japanese. This language is very difficult to pronounce as compared to other musical languages.
This language is very difficult to pronounce as compared to other musical languages.
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I always thought Hebrew sounds a bit like French.
Anyway thanks for sharing this :)
Do u really know all these languages? actually i have site which is helpful to learn Japanese. This language is very difficult to pronounce as compared to other musical languages.
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I always thought Hebrew sounds a bit like French.
I find that sometimes a confusing thing about french for people is how all the words run together, good for music not necessarily good for beginners.
The more vowels, the more difficult it becomes at the time of learning a new language. Been there trying to learn English, since my first language is spanish there are some sounds are hard for me to pronounce.
Such interesting read and information, thanks for sharing this post, I’ve already bookmarked your blog.
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I am learning Greek and from what I have learned it used to be musical. The diacritic marks that appear over the Biblical Greek letters used to indicate pitch or tone, but today they only indicate accent. I think the musical part was lost because Greek became a common language thoughout a lot of conquered countries, and I suppose the new speakers just dropped the musical part.
I speak french, but it is my second language. English seems to be more choppy and sometimes it is hard for others to understand my french because of it :)
I've had trouble pronouncing spanish vowels even though english is my primary language... it's supposed to be easier but I find it quite difficult.
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Awesome! I have read a lot on this topic, but you definitely give it a good vibe. This is a great post. Will be back to read more!
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It is a comparatively easy language to pronounce. Unlike English, Italian has predictable pronunciation. Every letter has a specific sound
Awesome! I have read a lot on this topic, but you definitely give it a good vibe. This is a great post. Will be back to read more!
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You're spot-on with German. I've been studying German for about 5 years now, and it's definitely not the most fluid language out there. One of the best ways I've learned to understand the flow of a language is to listen to radio stations that are solely in that language. It will help you pick up a lot of the nuances in the language's everyday use.
There is another point related to French usage in Opera: breathing periods and intonation. Italian is the opera language by excellence cause, as brilliantly exposed by you, presents almost all of their words ending in vowels, which means that almost every word has an identity, in pronounciation and breathing. It is of common sense that when an Opera is written in French, pronounciation and intonation use to be as if it was Italian, which is more musical in general, but very annoying to french speakers.
German, however, and Mozart or Haydn worked very well with this language, demands a huge effort
I guess the most musical language is the far eastern languages. There is no end of words and letters.
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funny to read all that what people think about foreign languages, but somehow it's true. I think french is a really musical language, so hebrew it is too. I really love foreign languages, and the differences of sound and pronounciation.
I can tell you one thing, norwegian is in way a musical language...
i have to agree on the french, it is very musical.
I really love the way the French language sounds when it is spoken by an authentic native of France. I do not think I could ever master the way the words roll of their tongues. Italian is also a beautiful language. Although I love our very own English language, you have to admit that it just is not nearly as pretty to hear as these others.
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There are many languages which are musical.I read in a book that Bangla(The language of Bangladesh) has 11 vowel. and it is very melodious. Outdoor Display Signs
Spanish is a musical language, ok but, the french also.
I think may be the way the words seem to run together is what makes French such a difficult language to learn. Maybe you have to have musical tendencies to be a linguist?
Thanks for sharing this vowels in different languages.I know only English and malayalam.I want to learn other languages.But First of all,i must learn vowels,consonants etc.Thanks for teaching me.Keep posting.
I read your comments about the German language - and indeed you are fully right in general.
Anyhow it is still possible to speak good musical language. In former times the trick was to expand the vocals when singing, nowadays with rap music its even easier as this is much "harder".
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french sounds awkward when used in song but it is great when used in poetry
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Music is the universal language so there is no doubt that this is the best way to learn another language.
Nice to know more about vowels and and linguistic zone.Thanks for sharing this interesting one.Keep posting.All the best for your future posts
I like to study more about vowels.Hope you will post this type in detail.Thanks for give this information.Thanks for sharing this interesting one.Keep posting.All the best for you future posts
If I know French is it easy to learn Spanish? How different are they from one another?
What about the other 15 vowel sounds in English?Two years before i attend a Sanskrit classto learn devanagari.I learned that the sound of the language - the vibration - is where the magic is.In sanskrit, the language comes alice in our mouths when spoken,but dies when wriiten on paper.
Italian is considered the traditional musical language. This is due to the fact that most words end in a vowel. Not only does this make it a very suitable language for opera, it also means that once you are familiar with its rhythms cheap business cards
Great post dude... thanks for shearing... I glad to read it. I like Hebrew but I can't speck... I can only understand it...
I just sounded out only 10 sounds..what one's am I missing. Cant figure it out!
Defines syntax as "the principles governing the combination of discrete structural elements into sequences". In music these are norms that are purposefully contravened by composers and not hard and fast rules. But these norms govern expectation and so music is structured around them.Your site is really helpful a person who loves to know what is music.So many people didn't get chance to learn music.I am telling all those people to read your blog.keep posting
Italian is widely regarded as an inherently musical language.Even if you are a complete beginner, you are probably already familiar with a good range of Italian words, such as ciao, spaghetti, opera, minestrone, al fresco, and so on. Italian and English share a common source in Latin, so many words are similar in both languages.Italian has borrowed many English words over the years.Unlike English, Italian is also a phonetic language.
If you are a complete beginner, you are probably already familiar with a good range of Italian words, such as ciao, spaghetti, opera, minestrone, al fresco, and so on. Italian and English share a common source in Latin, so many words are similar in both languages.Italian has borrowed many English words over the years.
In my opinion, Hebrew sounds like Polish - there are many hiss (sh / sch) in this language...
Great post dude !!! but do u really know all these languages? actually i have site which is helpful to learn Japanese.
I always found German a much easier language than French, since my accent was just not right for nasal romance languages.
French Is The 2nd number of world language
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Actually i really interested to learn Spanish when i was in 12th.Since it has so many vowels,i thought it's difficult to learn.Spanish music is a different variety language.A rich variety of musical traditions and styles fall under the broad topic "Spanish music" and the lines between genres are often blurred.
really nicely explained and presented, sometimes two languages mixed up and creates lots of confusions, nice post man!!
A vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! [ɑː] or oh! [oʊ], pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! [ʃː], where there is a constriction or closure at some point along the vocal tract. A vowel is also understood to be syllabic which is an equivalent open but non-syllabic sound is called a semivowel.
It's true. All these Germans I've seen in movies bark like dogs. I'm sure that's how Germans normally speak. custom essay | essays | buy essay | essay help | essay writing
I'm a German student and I can personally attest to the truth of this post. German is not the most romantic or musical sounding of the languages, for real, but the idioms and nuances of German are pretty fascinating. Ja wohl!
The use of spoken language is one of the most uniquely human parameters that differentiate one human being from another. The words we choose and the musical qualities that we use to express our words are based on a broad spectrum of functioning. This includes our brain and neurological functioning, our emotions and ego state, our intellectual and historic use of cognitive processes and the cultural realm of our existence.Keep posting
The frequency spectra of vowels are somewhat similar to those of periodic waves. Musical instruments produce these kind of waves, composed by harmonics that are entire multiples of certain fundamental frequency. On the contrary consonants are completely aperiodic and thus unmusical. Hence the conclusion one can extract from this physical curiosity about the Human phonological system is that languages with high vowel-consonant ratio (Italian, Japanese) are more "musical" than those with low vowel-constant ratio (Slavic languages). What do you think? What are the most musical languages according to you?
The frequency spectra of vowels are somewhat similar to those of periodic waves. Musical instruments produce these kind of waves, composed by harmonics that are entire multiples of certain fundamental frequency. On the contrary consonants are completely aperiodic and thus unmusical. Hence the conclusion one can extract from this physical curiosity about the Human phonological system is that languages with high vowel-consonant ratio (Italian, Japanese) are more "musical" than those with low vowel-constant ratio (Slavic languages). What do you think? What are the most musical languages according to you?
I'm learning portuguese, and to me is the most musical lenguage ever, I speak Italian and spanish and I think it's a kind of the union of the two languages.
All forms of singing as well as speech comes about in syllables, and the sound of syllables comes by their vowels.Thus we expected
correspondences between the inventories of vowels and musical intervals across cultures and found them at least in the corners.These are Lower limit, upper limit, and the 5 vowel system and the pentatonic scale as
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Nice article!ButYou have not mentioned about Telugu musical language.Telugu is one of the four classical languages of India. It is a South-Central Dravidian language mostly spoken in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where it is the official language.The Telugu script is derived from the Brāhmī script of the Mauryan Empire. Telugu has been subjected to prolonged, enormous influence from Sanskrit and also from the Prakrits, the spoken Indo-Aryan languages of medieval North India.
Perhaps German may sound friendly or 'musical' if pronounced softly. lol
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Really it is nice post and thanks for sharing it and really it is very useful.
as u said about the 15 vowels..yes infact all languages have more than what is there in the Book
Yes, Herbew is also the Musical Language, But it not complete French tone. But some different way. Anyways, Good post dude this.
It is really very interesting post and thanks for sharing it.
Yeah, there are sounds that only a native speaker can pronounce and is hard to get used to them.
I believe Germans have the most vowels.
Well, I'm native German and even though I recognize it can be a difficult language to learn I certainly disagree that it sounds like dogs barking. Actually many people I've come across in the world and the net have told me how beautiful sounding they find German. Also, people usually comment on my nice german accent even when I tried to hide it lol.
hehehe I think there is no more musical language than Italian, I didn't know or I never realized that almost all the words written in Italian end in vowel so I look for a text in Italian and they really do... and sounds more musical because of the accent.
this post is full of sense and knowledge that should all of us must learn.
This is due to the fact that most words end in a vowel. Not only does this make it a very suitable language for opera, it also means that once you are familiar with its rhythms, it is a comparatively easy language to pronounce. Unlike English, Italian has predictable pronunciation. Every letter has a specific sound, and there is not much difference between Italian spelling and pronunciation.
Thanks for your opinions, I am an English coach and come across these issues daily.
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I can totally see that with the French and Italian languages...you're right about German as well. Russian is the same way--not much "flow" or "musicality" to it; both Russian and German have a "stop-and-start" sound to them, while the more romantic languages (French, Italian) just flow.
The asian languages such as Thai and Chinese make use of different tones. These tones are very subtle to western ears and can be difficult to learn.
I've taken up Italian lessons and the language is fascinating. I honestly thought that it's only in the movies where Italian accents are exaggerated - but it's really that way.
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good for music not necessarily good for beginners.
This language is very difficult to pronounce as compared to other musical languages.
Oh this is so cool.......
I got sinitus and now I can do nasal pretty well.
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Fantastic post, wonderful breakdowns . Simply put ………. Very useful . Thanks heaps for sharing your experiences and knowledge.
Language has great intricacies and in the modern day most of us just fail to understand the importance of this great language.
I agree with you that the French language music. I did not learn the French language because others people talk to me that it is a very difficult language, but I like to hear while they speaking, and I like to enjoy in their songs.
I don't assume vowels are more musical than consonants. It's what my textbook says, it explains this phenomenon this way: musical instruments' sounds have certain kind of frequency spectra and those of vowels are in some way similar to these whereas frequency spectra of consonants are completely different in nature and that is the reason why consonants are not musical. You can learn more about spectrum analysis here:
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Great post! Now I knew that French, Italian and Spanish are musical languages. how about Asian languages such as Japanese and Korean, what do you call them? thanks for sharing this info!
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As a native Spanish speaker, I have to say it is a very "musical" language. There are certain people that are known for "singing" while speaking - for example people from Cuenca, Ecuador.
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Although French has nasalized vowels, making them difficult to pronounce for many English speakers, French is a very musical language. This is because words tend to flow from one word to the next with no pause in between them. In situations where there would be a pause, French requires that sounds be added or words changed. This is known as liaison.
Spanish has a lot of vowels and could be considered a musical language.
Very interesting.
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I think they are musical languages. They also connotes the information we need in life and the meaning of it.
It sounds too good! All info which is related to musical language such a very informative. Thanks for sharing it.
It really sounds good.And it is highly informative which is related to the music.I thank for posting these sites.
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This is a very good article about the facts of various languages. Do really know how to speak all these languages?
That explains why French songs are more impressive than others. Nice story! Thanks.
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French and Italian are such hard languages to learn. I did enjoy learning Spanish though.
Yeah, Hebrew seems to like a french sound!
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Hebrew is a cool language, some of my family friends can speak , it has a very interesting sound to it.
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It really nice article.I have no Idea of all these languages. This article will help me grate to knowing other languages then English
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Good article about vowels and musical languages. What you think about Japanese language?
English doesn't have a single letter to represent the initial sound ("ch") of the word child, so it must use two letters. Recognizing a digraph is one of the many difficulties in learning a language. For example, take the "ch" sound as mentioned above. One CANNOT simply read it as "a 'c' sound followed by an 'h' sound" - it is a completely different sound altogether.
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