Phonological features* you dislike...

Discussion of natural languages, or language in general.
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L'alphabētarium
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Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by L'alphabētarium »

(*you can also include languages, dialects, accents, speech patterns, phones/phonemes, etc)

What/Which are they and why do you dislike/hate them?

I, personally, dislike/hate:
1. an anglified accent of the Irish (Gaelic) language (with [ɹ] instead of [ɾ], diphthongisation of long vowels, aspirated initial plosives, etc)
2. (Danish) stød (why, just... why?)
3. Clicks (although I've no problem with implosives and/or ejectives I was never interested in clicks and have always disliked them)
4. Most retroflex consonants (minor dislikary, mostly because of the cuɻliɳg of the ʈoɳgue)
5. To be continued...

Whach' about y'all?

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by Abi »

Not a fan of implosive. Don't like pharyngeal and epiglottal, they're too hard to distinguish for me.
I don't like nom rhotic accents in English, even more so if they're American (bahstuhn).

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by Nortaneous »

i cringe every time i hear the cot/caught merger

also yank dialects

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by linguoboy »

Abi wrote:I don't like nom rhotic accents in English, even more so if they're American (bahstuhn).
I think nom rhotic accents are delicious!

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by Aurora Rossa »

Some things that I find unappealing to varying degrees:
— Uvular and pharyngeal consonants
— Schwas and other centralized vowels
— Too many fricatives and diphthongs
— Nasal and maybe front rounded vowels
— Southern dialects of American English
— Non-rhotic dialects of English
— Dutch and especially Afrikaans
Last edited by Aurora Rossa on Mon Nov 05, 2012 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by Buran »

Tones, and pitch accent generally. They make the language ugly, and writing it down is difficult. If they were at least regular in Cantonese or Mandarin, I wouldn't mind, but they're all over the place.
Non-rhotic accented English is painful to listen to.
Reduplication. It just... sounds stupid.
Polysynthetic languages. They all end up sounding the same to me.
Jabechasqvi wrote:— Dutch and especially Afrikaans
Dutch is okay, although the vowels make it sound kind of odd.

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by linguoboy »

Adjective Recoil wrote:Tones, and pitch accent generally. They make the language ugly, and writing it down is difficult. If they were at least regular in Cantonese or Mandarin, I wouldn't mind, but they're all over the place.
What do you mean by "regular" in this context?

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by Vardelm »

Anything below the Mason-Dixon line.
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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by linguoboy »

Vardelm wrote:Anything below the Mason-Dixon line.
Well bless your heart!

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by Thry »

Uvulars (/q/) are fugly.

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by Izambri »

Abi wrote:I don't like nom rhotic accents in English, even more so if they're American (bahstuhn).
(Non) rhotic dialects are my favorite. May be the influence of my native tongue.
Last edited by Izambri on Mon Nov 05, 2012 3:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by Thry »

I prefer rhotic, I don't like the Queen.
Izambri wrote:May be the influence of my native tongue.
Wha-? That we're taught British variants?

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by Torco »

really complex vowel systems, but that's just because I'm exceedingly bad at distinguishing small vowel differences.

I can barely tell apart e and E now, and that's a fucking achievement for me xD

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by Thry »

Torco wrote:really complex vowel systems, but that's just because I'm exceedingly bad at distinguishing small vowel differences.

I can barely tell apart e and E now, and that's a fucking achievement for me xD
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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by ol bofosh »

Route as rawt. Pronouncing <ham> as [h{m] in birmingham makes me cringe. Or leaving the [h] our of herb, herbal, herbalism etc. Ad z[i:]bra. Or thorough with [ow], and how that's also used in adios. And Buddha as booda.

When species becomes speeshees. Schedule as shedule not skedule. I've heard them in British and American accents.

Spanish accent in English is okay, except for using [j] when it should be [dZ]. [jak and jil] just don't sound the same at all. Even a French [Z] is a better replacement than [j]. I might even stand [tS] instead.

Essex/Medway("chav") accent is awful, most awful accent in England, beating Scouse and Brummy by an absolute bloody mile. Not exactly phonological, just the way it's said.
Izambri wrote:(Non) rhotic dialects are my favorite.
:-D
I'll make a vocaroo especially for you. XD

(it's bitter sweet, because on one side I like that I don't sound American, on the other I mourn for the loss of the Sussex accent)
It was about time I changed this.

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by ---- »

I dislike labials in high frequencies because they make everything just sound silly.

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by ol bofosh »

As for my girlfriend she hates a strong French accent in English, she doesn't understand it, even if she's L1 French herself.

I don't mind hearing a foreign accent in English, I almost believe that foreigners should speak English with their own accent. What I find really weird is hearing a strong English accent in French or Spanish. I'm used to stereotypical foreign accents in English, but not to English accents in foreign languages.
It was about time I changed this.

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by ---- »

[dɒːndej ʔɛs ɛɫ bænjow]

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by ol bofosh »

Tieđđá wrote:[dɒːndej ʔɛs ɛɫ bænjow]
Blah. I'd only take it seriously if it were a joke (so to speak).

Mind you, my girlfriend doesn't like the way I say some French words... [dUuvEi | p{tEi | bYfEi] :mrgreen:
It was about time I changed this.

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by Qwynegold »

Tieđđá wrote:I dislike labials in high frequencies because they make everything just sound silly.
Yeah, and frequent nasals too.
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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by clawgrip »

You guys really hate a lot of sounds, huh. Personally I don't really dislike any sounds. As far as conlanging goes, I avoid clicks because I don't understand how to pronounce most of them. Most other sounds I can at least approximate, but clicks, particularly the ones with other phonations, I don't understand.

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by Buran »

linguoboy wrote:
Adjective Recoil wrote:Tones, and pitch accent generally. They make the language ugly, and writing it down is difficult. If they were at least regular in Cantonese or Mandarin, I wouldn't mind, but they're all over the place.
What do you mean by "regular" in this context?
The difference in tone between two words is entirely arbitrary. If all nouns were tone 1 say, and all adjectives tone 2, etc. that would be at least bearable, but there's no pattern to the tones. It's also much too easy to mangle the tones when speaking quickly.

Additionally, tonal languages suck for singing.

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by clawgrip »

You could say something similar for English. In Chinese the tones are regular because the toneme of a word generally does not vary. If a word has tone 3, you can be fairly confident that it's almost always going to be pronounced with a tone 3 in any context. In English, however, the intonation and stressing of various words is unpredictable and always in flux. How a word is pronounced depends on complex rules of prosodic stress and the unpredictable stress pattern of the word itself.

(I realize my explanation is slightly simplistic since I believe some sort of prosody exists in Chinese as well)

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by ---- »

Adjective Recoil wrote:Additionally, tonal languages suck for singing.
No they don't.

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Re: Phonological features* you dislike...

Post by Ser »

Vowel qualities. They make a language ugly, and writing them down is difficult. Seriously, just go back in time and ask Phoenicians. They'd agree the Greek solution was absolutely gross. If they were at least regular in English, I wouldn't mind, but they're all over the place.

Look: the difference in vowel qualities between two words is entirely arbitrary. If all nouns had the vowel /æ/, and all adjectives had the vowel /i/, etc. that would be at least bearable, but there's no pattern to the vowel qualities. It's also much too easy to mangle the vowels when speaking quickly.

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