Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Languages and Voices

A couple of posts back I said I didnt like the sound of the Hebrew language, which poses the question of which language do I like the sound of??

Well, for a start, lets be clear that the only language that I understand well is English, and I only have a very basic and limited use of Spanish. All other languages are just a bunch of sounds to my ear.

Languages that I know I in general dont like the sound of are: Greek, Hebrew, Cantonese and Dutch and to some extent, German.
Languages that I do like the sound of are Italian, and Swedish; French and Mandarin are OK too.
And as for the rest of them, well, I have not heard enough to know what I think.
And just for interests sake, English spoken with a French accent sounds far nicer to me than French spoken with a French accent!

I must of course state the obvious that the voice speaking the language always makes a huge difference to how it sounds. Im pretty sure that most languages can be made to sound very nice with the right speaker. Likewise I am absolutely sure that any language can be made to sound absolutely horrible when "misused":
As a general rule, the more "nasal" sounding the voice, the less I like it (male or female) - Bummer since I think I have a quite nasal sounding voice myself!
Also, in female voices I tend to prefer less high pitched though not masculin.
As another general rule, a "nagging" style of talking (increasing intensity and pitch toward the end of the word/phrase) has a REALLY negative effect on me....Its not just that I dont like it... To me it becomes a veritable "Near Death Experience!" (and No, my mum didnt nagg me very much at all as I recall). So, let it be noted right here (and there is no one in my life to target this at presently, so Im just saying it for the heck of it) that when I hear that nagging sound, it not only makes me begrudge doing what ever it is that the words are telling/asking me to do, it makes me want to be as far away for the person making the terrible sound as I can possibly get... immediately! - If anybody ever wants to get rid of me then just turn on the nagg! - Though it´d be far easier to just ask me to go :))
There are also some particular baritone male voices with very piercing but deep resonances that are very painful for me to listen to.

So thats my thoughts on voices and languages.