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Les échelles les amène dans la salle souterraine.

En anglais: The ladders lead us down into the underground room.

I don't know why, but this seems... melodic to me.
/lez_ɛʃɛl lez_ɑmIn dɑn lɑ sæl sutɛRIn/
/lez_3/(sh)3/l lez-amIn don la sæl sut3/RIn/

schwhatever wrote:Les échelles les amène dans la salle souterraine.

En anglais: The ladders lead us down into the underground room.

I don't know why, but this seems... melodic to me.
/lez_ɛʃɛl lez_ɑmIn dɑn lɑ sæl sutɛRIn/
/lez_3/(sh)3/l lez-amIn don la sæl sut3/RIn/

It's the stress pattern:

Les é-chelles les a-mène dans la salle sou-te-rraine.

Every third syllable is stressed. However, I think it sounds much better with a proper French accent:

/lez eˈʃɛl lez aˈmɛn d̃ɑ la ˈsal sutɛˈʀɛn/
/lez e"SEl lez a"mEn dA~ la "sal sutE"REn/

(/d̃ɑ/ may look right as /dɑ̃/, depending on your computer/browser)

schwhatever wrote:Les échelles les amène dans la salle souterraine.

En anglais: The ladders lead us down into the underground room.

I don't know why, but this seems... melodic to me.
/lez_???l lez_?mIn d?n l? sæl sut?RIn/
/lez_3/(sh)3/l lez-amIn don la sæl sut3/RIn/

That sounds like one of those sentences form Duchamp's "Anemic Cinema."

An all-vowel phrase in Romanian:

Oaia aia e a ei, eu i-o iau.
/"waja "aja je a "jej "jew jo "jaw/
That sheep is hers, (and) I'm taking it.

schwhatever wrote:Les échelles les amène dans la salle souterraine.

En anglais: The ladders lead us down into the underground room.

"Lead them".

Legion wrote:

schwhatever wrote:Les échelles les amène dans la salle souterraine.

En anglais: The ladders lead us down into the underground room.

"Lead them".

*headdesk* That was an embaressing mistake of mine.

The masculine 3rd person plural conditional conjugation of the verb vouvoyer (meaning "address with/as vous") is vouvoyaient. It isn't that spectacular, but it does manage to combine all the vowels.

Japanese:

Hokaniwa, uraniwa niwa niwa niwatori ga imasu.
/hokaniwa M4aniwa niwa niwa niwato4i ga imas/

"In other news, in the back garden there are two chickens."

Estonian:

Jäääär
"Edge of ice"

Kuuuurija istus töööös jääääres.
"The moon-scientist sat in a working night at the edge of the ice."

Jõeäärne õueaiamaa
"Garden by the river"

Menniszpest wrote:Estonian:
Jäääär
"Edge of ice"

What is the equivalent/cognate in Finnish, Proto-Uralic, and Hungarian?

Shm Jay wrote:

Menniszpest wrote:Estonian:
Jäääär
"Edge of ice"

What is the equivalent/cognate in Finnish, Proto-Uralic, and Hungarian?

In Finnish it could be "jääääri".

In Hungarian: "jégél" (jég = 'ice', él would be 'edge') but I'm not so sure. And I don't know if él fits properly in this case, as I'm not a native speaker.

(Proto-?) Uralic roots: jäŋe = ice / elä = edge

okay, so i have to preface this by saying that i learned this from looney tunes (with future confirmation from an anthro teacher), but i personally can't get over the hawai'ian word humuhumunukunukuapua'a, which according to wikipedia means "triggerfish with a snout like a pig." i think it's just fun to say.

Wikipedia:
Humuhumunukunukuapuaʻa means "triggerfish with a pig-like short snout". It is not, as often claimed, the longest fish name in Hawaiian; that distinction belongs to lauwiliwilinukunukuʻoiʻoi ("long-snouted fish shaped like a wiliwili leaf"), the butterflyfish Forcipiger longirostris.

:sh :ch :sh :sh :sh :sh :sh :sh :sh :sh

Emblaegh wrote::sh :ch :sh :sh :sh :sh :sh :sh :sh :sh

now this is surely the most strange phrase /S.tS::::::/ what does it mean, ey ?

in Tagalog (Philippines) "Bababa ba?" translates to "Is it going down?"

also, there's the word "aalaala" which means remember.

Now this is the most interesting thread I've come across in a long time. I shall look for some on the internet later.

Okay, since everyone's making fun of Swedish anyway, and since it seems rather obscure words are allowed, how about the very unusual mathematical term antiirreell? That would mean something like "never complex".

2 double vowels and 2 double consonants?! That is freaky! And before you jump down my throat I'm not making fun of Swedish. In fact I like Swedish and I never knew that the language had so many interesting words.

No, I'm not trying to jump down your throat at all. I was being ironic. It's too bad that english doesn't have any good way to express irony in writing... My conlang does.

It is a funny language, with the pitch thing and all. Like, for example, the words tomten ("Santa", or some little elf-like thing) and tomten ("the plot", when talking about a house). They are both pronounced as they are spelled, both with the stress on the first syllable, but they still sound different. Most non-native speakers never get that right. I even know some native speakers who don't.

Some other funny phrases, let's see... Well, if you're angry at someone, you can say that you're going to "meat him" (kötta honom), which means something like "beat him up".

And then we have of course the Swedish word for "vacuum cleaner": dammsugare, literally meaning "dust sucker".
Well, that's what it does, so it's a good name. Be careful with the pronounciation, tho; the first A is pronounced [a], not [æ]. So, it's not a "damn sucker"; it's a "dumb sucker".
Also, don't forget the double M; without it, you would get a "lady-sucker".

Whatever that is.

That's awesome! Never heard of a conlang or a natlang doing something like that before. Interesting. I should try something like that and see where it goes.

Plus that one with the Swedish word killed me. XD

Matt wrote:Two tongue-twisters from Bella Coola of the Salishan Family:

xɬp?χʷɬtɬpɬɬs kʷc? 'then he had in his possession a bunchberry plant'

c?ktskʷc? 'he arrived'

[/quote]

That's amazing. Are there any recordings of that language available?

Someone (I forget who now) and I listened to a recording of it online once. It sounds just as crazy as you'd expect. Enjoy: http://globalrecordings.net/program/C13810.

I think "Es gefällt mir" is one of my favorites

From an English standpoint that is.

Kind of perverse...

Mezzo wrote:I think "Es gefällt mir" is one of my favorites

From an English standpoint that is.

Kind of perverse...

Why? "It is appealing to me"?