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[OT] English features[OT] English featuresPosted Feb 11, 2008 22:50 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)In reply to: Oh, it's easy by smitty_one_each Parent article: Interview: Mark "Markey" Kretschmann (Not the Gentoo Weekly News) The roman alphabet was shoehorned into English and it feels -- that is why its devilish pronunciation is a major barrier to learners. In comparison, Spanish, Italian or German are spoken much as they are written, and even French has more or less rigid rules. Not sure what you refer to with "atonal speech", but if you refer to intonation English and Scottish people certainly speak in a highly tonal way. In comparison, the Spanish (from Spain) or the Russians speak with much less intonation fluctuations. It is only in the US and only in certain areas with massive immigration where accents have been washed out. As to vocabulary, English speakers always boast of their ample choice of words, but I believe what you really have is excellent dictionaries. In dictionaries for other, more formalized languages only "official" terms spoken by the majority are collected. The huge amount of slang terms which are produced in any geographically dispersed language is mostly lost on them. In fact the best selling point of English is its almost trivial grammar rules, but you only get to appreciate them when you have learned the thing. So we are left with market penetration, which is of course why we are all learning English like crazy. Not one century ago people were praising French for its expressivity and musicality; at least now we can be honest about it. English (and in particular the US variety) is the language of business and technical endeavors, which is perfectly fine if you ask me.
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