Talk Talk

The Germans have a marvellously literal vocabulary. Take the word "Mundart"; it is the German for dialect. Literally, it means mouth-type. Dialect and accent, though of course different, are often interwoven in creating a sort of über-Mundart, if I can use such an expression. One begets the other, or is it the other way round? The Germans can also lay claim to one of the most horrid accents known to European man - rural Franconian in Bavaria. Not only horrid, it is incomprehensible even to those who speak it.

I was thinking about Mundart and accents and mouth-types this afternoon; mouth-types should just as equally apply to accents. In fact I was thinking about all this after yesterday's piece. But it hit home when I went for an hour or so's cooling by the sea. There were two young Mallorcan women. Not unattractive it must be said. Shame about the mouth-type. I know many Mallorcans, and most are dear, sweet people, but they are possessed of one great flaw - they sound as though they are cats being strangled, and usually cats being strangled very loudly. For a people who apparently have a trait which eschews drawing attention to themselves, the Mallorcans have a strange way of showing it, when it comes to what emanates via their vocal chords. One of my Mallorcan neighbours has a gob on her the size of Albufera, and she is hardly unique.

Most languages, dialects and accents are tolerable, even if some, like Dutch, grate like nails being drawn down a blackboard. Not all mouth-types can attain the sensuous perfection of the French or the rich melodies of the Irish. Local accents in Britain are not necessarily the stuff of mouth-type beauty - dense Brummie for instance; Mallorquín is the sort of Brummie of the "Spanish" languages. Listen to a bunch of Mallorcans speaking and there is this repetitiousness of the "cha-aaah" sound, which lends itself to the strangled-cat metaphor. Then there is the sheer length of some vowel sounds. Take a very short word like "bé" (the equivalent of bien in Spanish). This is not just the whole nine yards of long vowels, it is the whole nine hundred yards - beeeaaaarrrr. Strangled cats and strangled sheep.

You see, when they go on about defence of local languages and all the rest, they are missing one vital test - whether it actually sounds any good or not. There are doubtless local accents and dialects dotted around Europe that could compete, for sheer rhapsodic quality, with the French, but Mallorquín is not one of them. And then you come back to the volume. All those sound limiters in bars and so on, has anyone ever thought about fitting one to a Mallorcan?

Anyway, we all speak with different tongues, and linguistic diversity is something to be celebrated not criticised. I speak with a tongue. Right here on this blog. I just have. There is my tongue. Can you see it? Inside my cheek. All of this stuff in my tongue; all of this I have just written. True or false, as Riki Lash might ask - in an American accent.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Beatles (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QShSmpI0r9k). Today's title - Er, well who did this?

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