In this article, I discuss the sound of one's own native tongue- a sound we often fail to hear because we're so accustomed to it!
Remember the last life-altering experience you enjoyed? I had one recently during a road trip. We were happy but tired, going on three precious hours of sleep. I was cuddled up in the backseat, in a half-awake trance. We were listening to a book-on-tape of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds".
As I listened, half aslumber, something profound happened. I was able to bypass the language processing part of my brain, and the slow melodious English of the narrator went straight to my auditory sense: unparsed, uninterpreted. I was able to hear my own native tongue, unobscured by the smoky veil of meaning.
As you think about it, you agree with me that non-native languages have distinct sounds. Consider German with its ich-Lauts and ach-Lauts; a good German opera stirs up excitement and wanderlust in our hearts even as its meaning soars over our heads. The rapid, impassioned syllables of Japanese inspire exotic wonders in our minds; the tones of Mandarin tear up the silence with their heartfelt melody. Spanish pierces our hearts with joy and romantic throbbing, these are the things you can read between the lines in a good Spanish drama or song.
Yet the sound of our own native tongue is overcast by the infinite subtlety of semantics. When I speak to you, your conscious mind doesn't even register the half-Germanic, half-Romantic, unique beauty that is my English. It's like our thoughts are shared directly, and the English is but a pleasant ambient buzz.
Since that revelatory experience, I've been striving to enjoy the beauty of the phonology of my language: struggling, when I have enough presence, to listen to both your meaning, AND to your words themselves. My eyes have been opened more fully to the grand concert which is life, the joyous symphony of beautiful melody and harmony which we fashion together.
If you enjoyed this article (and I know you did), you'll also enjoy these:
Sentence Mining
Spaced Repetition Systems
Your apologies? Sorry, no thanks!
Voice: The Male Version of Tits
Remember the last life-altering experience you enjoyed? I had one recently during a road trip. We were happy but tired, going on three precious hours of sleep. I was cuddled up in the backseat, in a half-awake trance. We were listening to a book-on-tape of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds".
As I listened, half aslumber, something profound happened. I was able to bypass the language processing part of my brain, and the slow melodious English of the narrator went straight to my auditory sense: unparsed, uninterpreted. I was able to hear my own native tongue, unobscured by the smoky veil of meaning.
As you think about it, you agree with me that non-native languages have distinct sounds. Consider German with its ich-Lauts and ach-Lauts; a good German opera stirs up excitement and wanderlust in our hearts even as its meaning soars over our heads. The rapid, impassioned syllables of Japanese inspire exotic wonders in our minds; the tones of Mandarin tear up the silence with their heartfelt melody. Spanish pierces our hearts with joy and romantic throbbing, these are the things you can read between the lines in a good Spanish drama or song.
Yet the sound of our own native tongue is overcast by the infinite subtlety of semantics. When I speak to you, your conscious mind doesn't even register the half-Germanic, half-Romantic, unique beauty that is my English. It's like our thoughts are shared directly, and the English is but a pleasant ambient buzz.
Since that revelatory experience, I've been striving to enjoy the beauty of the phonology of my language: struggling, when I have enough presence, to listen to both your meaning, AND to your words themselves. My eyes have been opened more fully to the grand concert which is life, the joyous symphony of beautiful melody and harmony which we fashion together.
If you enjoyed this article (and I know you did), you'll also enjoy these:
Sentence Mining
Spaced Repetition Systems
Your apologies? Sorry, no thanks!
Voice: The Male Version of Tits
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1 comments:
I've also heard it once. But then I was down with the flu (or a really nasty cold) in a hostel dormitory in Prague. Half slumbering in the afternoon when two came in speaking something I just knew was Swedish (my native language), but I was unable to understand anything, basically.
So I recall thinking "so this is what Swedish sounds like when the brain's shut down". :)
(OK, they weren't Swedes but Norwegians, but it's not that much of a difference)
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