Dandelion Break Why English sound so English

[JohnBertel]

The video explains the concept of stress-timed and syllable-timed languages. Something I had never heard of. What he calls "content words" are stressed, while "grammar words" are not. It seems one of the tricks to space out the stressed words in order to get the proper rhythm is by using the weak form of grammar words (second video.)

Danish is also stress-timed, but I simply can't hear it. Maybe because we tend to mumble.

I don't know if there is anything to learn from this when it comes to writing. Maybe it's just one more reason to concentrate on verbs and nouns and arrange them in a way that doesn't require too many empty grammar words.

 

[Rich.]

This stuff is fascinating. I taught English as a foreign language for several years – my students were native Spanish speakers – and I always found that one forty-five minute class on stress-timed pronunciation was transformational. Spanish is syllable timed, which is why English and Spanish speakers often sound so odd when speaking each other's languages (my kids are natively bilingual, and they complain bitterly if I speak Spanish when it's just the three of us: "Speak English, Daddy! You sound weird!").

I didn't know that Danish was stress timed, but it makes sense being that it's a Germanic language. Are all Germanic languages stress timed? I guess so. And then there's the tonal languages, like Mandarin Chinese – a whole other level of complication for non-native speakers.

As you say, John, I don't know if any of this applies to writing. In English and Spanish I'm not aware of anything in their writing systems that represents this aspect of their phonologies.