Espain
Spain is a country like any other, it has its history and culture, its nice and its ugly spots - and its language. While languages in Europe usually have a lot in common, be it grammar or vocabulary wise, they definitely also have their little problems of alphabet incompatibility to each other.
For example most nations excluding English speaking ones (and maybe the Netherlands) tend to have their problems with the English 'th' and especially the 'r'. The French for all I know might from time to time find it difficult to properly pronounce words starting with or including an 'h' which makes 'Hotel' sound like 'Otel'.
This phenomenon is obviously based on the fact that the mother tongue doesn't contain or doesn't pronounce some bits and pieces of the other language and thus makes it difficult to master them. As many European nations have problems like this, people often just smile when they encounter them, knowing that oneself might sounds equally funny.
As I've got reasons to be in Spain quite regularly, I could explore the nation's culture, lifestyle and language mostly from a non-touristic point of view. This yielded many interesting facts. Like the French, they've got their problem with the 'h' but even more noticeable is one habit which I haven't encountered anywhere yet. This time the source is not unpronounced or non-existent letters in the speaker's native language but the enforcement to add letters where they don't belong.
The letter in question is the 'e' which, for a Spanish speaker, must be prefixed to double consonants like 'sp', 'st' or 'sm'. The first serious encounter I've enjoyed was a cinema advertising the movie 'Espiderman' followed by the famous alcoholic drink 'Esmirnoff'. I've met Spanish persons who, even by trying hard, couldn't possibly emit such words without leaking an 'e' first.
Well, I've just accepted that my sir name doesn't sound like 'Schmidt' but rather like 'Esmit' - which is totally acceptable considering the excessive use of consonants in this name.
Finally, another amusing finding:
As a side note, there are non-European languages which yield a similar behavior. An example is the Japanese way of appending vowels to consonants in foreign words, such that words ending in 'l' or 'r' actually would end in 'ru'. But that's mainly because the alphabet only contains syllables except for the 'n'.
For example most nations excluding English speaking ones (and maybe the Netherlands) tend to have their problems with the English 'th' and especially the 'r'. The French for all I know might from time to time find it difficult to properly pronounce words starting with or including an 'h' which makes 'Hotel' sound like 'Otel'.
This phenomenon is obviously based on the fact that the mother tongue doesn't contain or doesn't pronounce some bits and pieces of the other language and thus makes it difficult to master them. As many European nations have problems like this, people often just smile when they encounter them, knowing that oneself might sounds equally funny.
As I've got reasons to be in Spain quite regularly, I could explore the nation's culture, lifestyle and language mostly from a non-touristic point of view. This yielded many interesting facts. Like the French, they've got their problem with the 'h' but even more noticeable is one habit which I haven't encountered anywhere yet. This time the source is not unpronounced or non-existent letters in the speaker's native language but the enforcement to add letters where they don't belong.
The letter in question is the 'e' which, for a Spanish speaker, must be prefixed to double consonants like 'sp', 'st' or 'sm'. The first serious encounter I've enjoyed was a cinema advertising the movie 'Espiderman' followed by the famous alcoholic drink 'Esmirnoff'. I've met Spanish persons who, even by trying hard, couldn't possibly emit such words without leaking an 'e' first.
Well, I've just accepted that my sir name doesn't sound like 'Schmidt' but rather like 'Esmit' - which is totally acceptable considering the excessive use of consonants in this name.
Finally, another amusing finding:
As a side note, there are non-European languages which yield a similar behavior. An example is the Japanese way of appending vowels to consonants in foreign words, such that words ending in 'l' or 'r' actually would end in 'ru'. But that's mainly because the alphabet only contains syllables except for the 'n'.
Labels: curiosities, languages
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posted by Falko at 4:08 AM
1 Comments:
Yeap, funny thing, i had the debate with an argentinian friend some days ago(his name is esteban!).
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