Cellar door
Cellar door
"Most English-speaking people ... will admit that cellar door is "beautiful", especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful. Well then, in Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent, and moving to the higher dimension, the words in which there is pleasure in the contemplation of the association of form and sense are abundant." - J. R. R. Tolkien, English and Welsh, 1955.
This phenomenon won't be new to almost everyone here. The term "cellar door", in its British English pronunciation, something like /sɛlə dɔ̝ː/ is largely considered to be the most beautiful word or combination. Some uses (mostly re-spelled) are found here.
So, as conlangers, has anyone here deliberately used or deliberately avoided "cellar door" in their conlangs? Do you agree with it being at all "beautiful"?
This phenomenon won't be new to almost everyone here. The term "cellar door", in its British English pronunciation, something like /sɛlə dɔ̝ː/ is largely considered to be the most beautiful word or combination. Some uses (mostly re-spelled) are found here.
So, as conlangers, has anyone here deliberately used or deliberately avoided "cellar door" in their conlangs? Do you agree with it being at all "beautiful"?
My conlangery Twitter: @Jonlang_
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Re: Cellar door
Well, "cellar door" doesn't do much for me; but I have my own "cellar doors" as well. I have to fight that tendancy sometimes, because it can lead to an SAE-ish feel to the languages. Not that I think there's anything wrong with it, but my conlangs are supposed to be spoken on another planet. Deliberatly avoiding "cellar doors" leads for me to a more alien sound, which is more fitting.
Re: Cellar door
Me neither. It sounds like "salad or" or something.Ars Lande wrote:Well, "cellar door" doesn't do much for me
Re: Cellar door
Well, as much as I idolize Tolkien, I actually strongly disagree with him in that I find "throaty sounds" highly agreeable, and indeed my three favorite groups of sounds do not occur phonemically in English: uvular fricatives, ejectives, and implosives. Oddly enough, I have no conlangs that include all three sounds: I have a couple languages with both uvular fricatives and ejectives, I have one language with both ejectives and implosives, but I have no languages with all three or with both uvular fricatives and implosives. Of course, I'm also not a huge fan of Welsh, preferring Irish and Gaulish when it comes to Celtic languages. You'll rarely find me disagreeing with the dear professor, and despite what I just said I find both Sindarin and especially Quenya very aesthetically pleasing, but this is one of those rare exceptions.
"But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”
Re: Cellar door
Well I love hearing Arabic's /q/, /ʕ/, /ɣ/, and /ħ/ in songs and in every day words, so I'm against Tolkien on this one! The word /qal.ʕa/ 'citadel, castle' and /ʕajn/ 'eye' are exceptionally beautiful imo
A New Yorker wrote:Isn't it sort of a relief to talk about the English Premier League instead of the sad state of publishing?
Shtåså, Empotle7á, Neire WippwoAbi wrote:At this point it seems pretty apparent that PIE was simply an ancient esperanto gone awry.
- Curlyjimsam
- Lebom
- Posts: 205
- Joined: Wed Dec 29, 2004 11:57 am
- Location: Elsewhere
- Contact:
Re: Cellar door
I do like the words "cellar door", but I'm not sure I'd have /selador/ or whatever in any of my conlangs, other than by accident. A general aesthetic appreciation of the words is one thing, but there's also the matter of conforming the word to the general "feel" of the language - and I'm not sure /selador/ would really fit into most of mine that well. In native Viksen words, for example, /l/ is lost between vowels and /s/ palatalises before /e/, so you'd only get selador if it were a relatively recent loan.
Re: Cellar door
I feel the euphonic appeal of the word. In Tautisca, a word pronounced [sɛlə dɔ̝ː] would be impossible - the language has no shwa.
- ObsequiousNewt
- Avisaru
- Posts: 434
- Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 5:05 pm
- Location: /ˈaɪ̯əwʌ/
Re: Cellar door
Rui wrote:-Klaivas- wrote:Only because it's like gone door, more door and area door... a symbol of his own arroganceXhin wrote:Tolkien once remarked how beautiful-sounding the mundane phrase cellar door was.
퇎
Ο ορανς τα ανα̨ριθομον ϝερρον εͱεν ανθροποτροφον.
Το̨ ανθροπς αυ̨τ εκψον επ αθο̨ οραναμο̨ϝον.
Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν.
Ο ορανς τα ανα̨ριθομον ϝερρον εͱεν ανθροποτροφον.
Το̨ ανθροπς αυ̨τ εκψον επ αθο̨ οραναμο̨ϝον.
Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν. Θαιν.
Re: Cellar door
Gondor, Mordor and Eriador all have rhotic Rs, and so don't really fit the /sɛlə dɔ̝ː/ thing.ObsequiousNewt wrote:Rui wrote:-Klaivas- wrote:Only because it's like gone door, more door and area door... a symbol of his own arroganceXhin wrote:Tolkien once remarked how beautiful-sounding the mundane phrase cellar door was.
My conlangery Twitter: @Jonlang_
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Re: Cellar door
I've got a WIP conlang based on "pashmina" پشمینه being my "cellar door".
-_-_Aftovota_-_-
- 2+3 clusivity
- Avisaru
- Posts: 454
- Joined: Fri Mar 16, 2012 5:34 pm
Re: Cellar door
Did J.R.R. have a rhotic or non-rhotic accent?dyolf wrote:Gondor, Mordor and Eriador all have rhotic Rs, and so don't really fit the /sɛlə dɔ̝ː/ thing.
Oh, yeah. That's a good one. A lot of nasals and labials.Αυτοβοτα wrote:pashmina
Honestly, I have a mad love for thorn clusters.
linguoboy wrote:So that's what it looks like when the master satirist is moistened by his own moutarde.
Re: Cellar door
Non-rhotic, I'm pretty certain.2+3 clusivity wrote:Did J.R.R. have a rhotic or non-rhotic accent?dyolf wrote:Gondor, Mordor and Eriador all have rhotic Rs, and so don't really fit the /sɛlə dɔ̝ː/ thing.
"But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”
Re: Cellar door
Why does it matter? Tolkien spoke with a non-rhotic, near enough RP accent. I don't see how that affects his intended pronunciation of places in Middle-Earth.Zaarin wrote:Non-rhotic, I'm pretty certain.2+3 clusivity wrote:Did J.R.R. have a rhotic or non-rhotic accent?dyolf wrote:Gondor, Mordor and Eriador all have rhotic Rs, and so don't really fit the /sɛlə dɔ̝ː/ thing.
My conlangery Twitter: @Jonlang_
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Re: Cellar door
No, but it would affect the pronunciation of cellar door that he found so attractive.
كان يا ما كان / يا صمت العشية / قمري هاجر في الصبح بعيدا / في العيون العسلية
tà yi póbo tsùtsùr ciivà dè!
short texts in Cuhbi
Risha Cuhbi grammar
tà yi póbo tsùtsùr ciivà dè!
short texts in Cuhbi
Risha Cuhbi grammar
Re: Cellar door
Exactly. "Cellar door" is pretty meh in rhotic dialects, or downright gross depending on the pronunciation of /3`/.
linguoboy wrote:Ah, so now I know where Towcester pastries originated! Cheers.GrinningManiac wrote:Local pronunciation - /ˈtoʊ.stə/
Re: Cellar door
This one: /sɛlə dɔ̝ː/ (or near it) I imagine. But one can't just assume that he intended all of the -or words in Middle-Earth to reflect his affection for /sɛlə dɔ̝ː/. Anyway, his point about "cellar door" wasn't that he found it to be the most beautiful sound, just that it is regarded as such and that Welsh, for him, contains more "cellar doors" than English, and I, for one, agree; I mean the phrase "gweithio'n galed" is beautiful when you disregard its meaning, so is "Ynys Môn", "noswaith" and lots of other Welsh words. For me Welsh has some of the nicest sounding words I've ever heard (yes, nicer than French).Yng wrote:No, but it would affect the pronunciation of cellar door that he found so attractive.
My conlangery Twitter: @Jonlang_
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Re: Cellar door
I fell in love with Welsh English thanks to Merrill in Dragon Age 2, but personally I find Welsh itself to be one of the less attractive Celtic languages--and overall I prefer the Goidelic branch to the Brythonic. For the same reason, I find Sindarin less pleasant sounding than Quenya. Icelandic and Old English are among the more attractive Indo-European languages, IMO, but I think Biblical Hebrew has the most "cellar doors" for me--but I'm very partial to ejectives. I'd also rank Yucatec Maya up there for the same reason.dyolf wrote:This one: /sɛlə dɔ̝ː/ (or near it) I imagine. But one can't just assume that he intended all of the -or words in Middle-Earth to reflect his affection for /sɛlə dɔ̝ː/. Anyway, his point about "cellar door" wasn't that he found it to be the most beautiful sound, just that it is regarded as such and that Welsh, for him, contains more "cellar doors" than English, and I, for one, agree; I mean the phrase "gweithio'n galed" is beautiful when you disregard its meaning, so is "Ynys Môn", "noswaith" and lots of other Welsh words. For me Welsh has some of the nicest sounding words I've ever heard (yes, nicer than French).Yng wrote:No, but it would affect the pronunciation of cellar door that he found so attractive.
"But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”
Re: Cellar door
Ah yes, Eve MylesZaarin wrote:I fell in love with Welsh English thanks to Merrill in Dragon Age 2
My conlangery Twitter: @Jonlang_
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
Me? I'm just a lawn-mower; you can tell me by the way I walk.
- Frislander
- Avisaru
- Posts: 836
- Joined: Mon Feb 29, 2016 6:34 am
- Location: The North
Re: Cellar door
Overall I'd say that I find Goidelic to be 'rounder', more like a soft cushion, but a bit overly smooth, and Brittonic to have slightly more edge to it to make just that bit more satisfying to me. Brittonic also (perhaps somewhat stereotypically) feels more like you'd use it in everyday conversation, while Goidelic (and to a lesser extent Irish English) doesn't for some reason.Zaarin wrote:personally I find Welsh itself to be one of the less attractive Celtic languages--and overall I prefer the Goidelic branch to the Brythonic. For the same reason, I find Sindarin less pleasant sounding than Quenya.
Re: Cellar door
I love hearing Artifexian's videos on conworlds and conlangs. He speaks some nonstandard dialect of Irish English that is just fun to hear.
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!
kårroť
kårroť
Re: Cellar door
I hated the game, but Merrill was adorable--mostly thanks to Eve Myles' charming voice and acting.dyolf wrote:Ah yes, Eve MylesZaarin wrote:I fell in love with Welsh English thanks to Merrill in Dragon Age 2
The people of Ireland would beg to differ. :p Well, at least on the "Irish English" part.Frislander wrote:Overall I'd say that I find Goidelic to be 'rounder', more like a soft cushion, but a bit overly smooth, and Brittonic to have slightly more edge to it to make just that bit more satisfying to me. Brittonic also (perhaps somewhat stereotypically) feels more like you'd use it in everyday conversation, while Goidelic (and to a lesser extent Irish English) doesn't for some reason.Zaarin wrote:personally I find Welsh itself to be one of the less attractive Celtic languages--and overall I prefer the Goidelic branch to the Brythonic. For the same reason, I find Sindarin less pleasant sounding than Quenya.
"But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”
Re: Cellar door
I'm probably in the minority but I love rhotic accents and hate non-rhotic ones. Non-rhotic accents always feel as if the end of the word just trails off: "sellaah daaah" is just ugly as hell. I like words with rhotics and voiced continuants: rain, river, more, bizarre, etc.
So was it a conscious decision to make a fluttery sounding language have such a brutish looking orthography? Half the words look like Klingon to me.dyolf wrote: I mean the phrase "gweithio'n galed" is beautiful when you disregard its meaning, so is "Ynys Môn", "noswaith"
Re: Cellar door
"rain" still has a rhotic sound in non-rhotic dialects.
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!
kårroť
kårroť
- Frislander
- Avisaru
- Posts: 836
- Joined: Mon Feb 29, 2016 6:34 am
- Location: The North
Re: Cellar door
That's only if you have the cot-caught merger, so only applies to the US: in the UK, the standard pronunciation would be more like "sella daaww", with not much variation dialectally.Abi wrote:I'm probably in the minority but I love rhotic accents and hate non-rhotic ones. Non-rhotic accents always feel as if the end of the word just trails off: "sellaah daaah" is just ugly as hell.
Re: Cellar door
then you probably don't really know what klingon looks likeAbi wrote:So was it a conscious decision to make a fluttery sounding language have such a brutish looking orthography? Half the words look like Klingon to me.
كان يا ما كان / يا صمت العشية / قمري هاجر في الصبح بعيدا / في العيون العسلية
tà yi póbo tsùtsùr ciivà dè!
short texts in Cuhbi
Risha Cuhbi grammar
tà yi póbo tsùtsùr ciivà dè!
short texts in Cuhbi
Risha Cuhbi grammar