Sunday, April 3, 2011

On Speaking

Have any of you realized how much of an accomplishment it is just to be able to speak or write?
I mean, think about it. Think back to all of your English classes, all of that grammar that they went through with you until you were about ready to puke, every single vocabulary word that you ever learned, the various forms for all of those verbs, etc., etc. ...
Ridiculous, really, when you think about it. I mean, how have we managed to survive communicating like this? It must have taken thousands of years to concoct such eloquent forms of speaking, and this is only English. This isn't counting the other hundreds of languages there are in the world, each with their own forms of grammar and vocabulary...the thought of it makes my brain hurt. And of course, there's all sorts of linguistics that go with each language. Did you know that often a language can be defined by how your tongue and mouth is used to form the words? There's languages that focus on speaking with the front portion of your mouth, and languages that focus on speaking more with back portions of the mouth. Want examples? German is very in the back of the mouth. The famous 'ch' sound that German's are known for demonstrates this. It's often why Germans sound like they're trying to clear their throats when they talk; it's just how the language has developed. Learning a language? Know a language? Try and figure out exactly which portions of the mouth that language uses. You'll be surprised, I think.
And English has very backwards grammar compared to other languages. I mean, our verbs are behind our nouns, what a concept! A lot of languages don't do that, which is why it's so hard for people to learn new languages sometimes. And English itself is hard to learn, because of all those words that sound the same (there, they're, their), and those grammar issues and everything.

So why am I rambling about this? Well, I'll let you guys guess.

...what do you mean I've hardly given you any clues as to why I'm rambling about this? Ugh, fine, I guess I'll let you have a hint.

'Hozehthah ehl zuhm vahn ehlem vehrootahn'.

...still not good enough? Well, let's just say I've had a breakthrough in how I'm spending my free time from now on. Maybe I'll keep you updated. I guess it depends on how well it works out, and whether or not it can keep my interest.

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