I remember seeing a programme not long ago that included an interview with a couple of Czech people, and being struck immediately that “<em>these guys sound like Slavic-Welsh!</em>” So I started to think about how to roughly describe the sound of speech in other languages only in terms of the sounds of <em>other</em> languages.
I've seen a couple of videos of “imaginary” English that also made me think a bit more about how languages relate to each other in prosody, characteristic phonetic features and all that.
- So, how could you describe the languages you've heard lately in terms of other languages?
Do you think it's harder to do this the more you understand of the language? It seems so, to me.
Here are a few (Euro-centric) impressions of mine (I only mean them lightheartedly, of course - I don't imagine these would exactly go down brilliantly with many natives!) :
Czech – the Welsh speaking Russian
Hungarian – the Greeks speaking Norwegian
Slovenian – the English speaking Polish
Danish – Scouse Norwegians
Croatian – the Dutch speaking Ukrainian
Привет всем. Этот довольно специфический вопрос )
Очевидно, культурного и не язычного.
Каково происхождение зелено-желтых оград и бордюров, которые встречаются всю Москву?
До сих пор, я ассоциировал их с жилыми домами и окрестностей в России вообще же (может быть и в Украине), но они, в самом деле, не действительно знак Москвы в частности?
Они ассоциируются ли с определенной эрой? Появились ли они в определенном районе первыми до того, в других местах? Откуда их!
Ожидаю, что такие краски были выбраны из-за того, что природные цветы - так, наверно, правильно? А кем выбраны, когда? Во всяком случаях, мне нравится та маленькая, характерная черта российских улиц.
Вокруг вашего дома есть зелено-желтые городские предметы, так сказать?
In your part of the world, <em>if</em> someone has a washing machine, where is it usually kept?
It's a funny little cultural difference I'm curious about.
I've noticed that Russian washing machines are often fitted in the bathroom. This makes some sense, since there may well not be useable space elsewhere for such a large and awkwardly shaped thing. Plus, it keeps a lot of the plumbing and especially steamy fittings together in one place. It's something I've never seen in the UK, though, where they're almost always in kitchens. So I've started to ponder the <em>fascinating</em> question of national average washing machine location...
