Ramblings of a linguistically inclined nerd...

The Music of Mankind


If you would humour me, dear reader, I would just like to take a moment to let my inner linguistic nerd run free.

You see one of my favorite hobbies is studying foreign languages. Always has been. That's why sometimes I do really geeky things like listen to radio broadcasts in languages that I don't understand just so I can hear what they sound like. Just to get a feel for the music of the language, you know? I do this because while the ideas that each language tries to express are the same, the music and the melody are always different.

A piano and a recorder can both play the same notes but they sure as heck don't sound the same.  Get what I'm saying?

First of all I want to share a clip of spoken Cymraeg. I used to think French was the most beautiful language in the world until I stumbled upon this baby. The Welsh language. A language whose existence I was totally ignorant of until not too long ago.

I first heard it spoken while I was on a bus in London, traveling from Gatwick to Heathrow to catch my connection to Paris. Out of sheer boredom, and probably because I don't own an Ipod, I was spending my bus ride macoing ('eavesdropping' for you non-Trinis) the elderly couple in front of me, who were having a heated conversation about what they were going to have for dinner.

I think I had originally tuned in to their conversation because I had thought that they too were from Trinidad, their accent being surprisingly similar to our own. Half way through their discussion, however, they suddenly switched over to a strange and mysterious sounding tongue. Something whimsical and melodic that I had never heard before. I was blown away. It was by far the coolest sounding language that I had ever heard. It sounded like something straight out of a Tolkien novel; something that should be spoken by elves! (Hey, I warned you I was going to let my inner nerd run free)

I now know that what they were speaking is Welsh. An ancient Celtic language and one that was born in a goddess worshipping, matriarchal pagan society. A language that was spoken by an ancient people who lived their lives in tune with the cycles of the world. You can kind of sense that ancient pagan connection when you listen to it, can't you?

If there was ever a language that I would learn for the sole reason that it sounded beautiful, this would definitely be it.

Please take a moment to let the music of it wash over you.





This next video is a clip of a South African tour guide speaking in the Xhosa language. Xhosa is one of South Africa's eleven official languages (Nelson Mandela's native tongue) and is one of the few languages in the world to make use of that strange 'clickng' sound. I just think that it sounds so insanely cool. Hynotising almost.

In the clip, a South African tour guide is giving an example of a tongue-twister that Xhosa children learn to pronounce the clicks properly.

If you think Chinese seems like a hard language to pronounce just wait till you hear this!





Then there's good old Spanish. I sort of have of still have a love/hate relationship with this language. Maybe it's because my first ever Spanish teacher gave me the impressively low score of 23% for my final exam in form 1 (That b**ch). Or maybe it's because Spanish can just so sound so harsh sometimes. Hey, I'm sure you must have heard somebody get cussed out in espanol before. Not a pretty sight. Having a suite mate blasting reggaeton 24/7 in freshman year in college didn't really help my impression of the language either.

But, oh, Spanish can be so magnificent sometimes. When spoken well, Spanish comes very close to being one of the most passionate and charming languages on this planet. The rolling R's and the pulsing rhythm weave together to capture the vibrance and the passion of Spanish speaking people everywhere. There's also the music. Man, I swear, listening to music by Julio Iglesias, Rocio Durcal, or the Gipsy Kings is enough to make anyone want to open up their old 'Viva' textbooks and start brushing up on their espanol.

Ooh yes and there are the poets and the writers too. Reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Pablo Neruda in English was one of the main reasons that I started back studying Spanish (I could only imagine how much better they are in the original language).

This is one of my all time favorite poems (subtitled in English and French). I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Well I think that's enough linguistic geekiness for one day. Catch you guys later.