Beauty

[sivullinen]

In my favourite magazine, Suomen Kuvalehti, there was an article about beautiful words in different languages. Apparently, in other countries people have voted for the prettiest words. In Swedish they've been hamna and sommarvind, in France and Spain amour/amor, and in English mother. Mother? WTF? That's not at all pretty, not to my ear. Er sound,

Comments

[ladyphoenixia]

...mother? That's not a pretty word. Huh.

Some of my favourite english words are things like defenestration, onomatopoeia, oxymoron and such, but they're not exactly pretty. English doesn't really incline itself so much towards pretty words, it's a bit harsher (maybe due to the saxonic influence?) Romantic languages like french and italian are prettier...

However, going for a pretty english word in general... ethereal is pretty nice. :D

I asked my parents, and they came up with such words as hypothetical, calligraphy and cylindrical. But it's a hard question! XD

[sivullinen]

defenestration, onomatopoeia, oxymoron
but these are not originally English, right? Or at least to me they seem very Latin or such.

It's a very difficult question, because they're so many words, and you don't know how to judge beauty of words - is it the meaning? The writing? The pronounciation? All of it?

[ladyphoenixia]

One of the things about english, more than any other language, is that england was pretty much a melting pot of languages. It was invaded by so many cultures that our language is a mixture of anglic and gaelic and norman (french) and latin and saxon (german) and all sorts, so pretty much every word has its roots in other languages. But then, most languages can trace their words back to their earlier roots... ewnglish is just more obvious.

Defenestration is based on latin, yes (Like, you know, ambulance or mortal or many other english words ;))
Oxymoron is literally FireIce in Greek.
I don't know about onomatopoeia, but am sure we can trace it to somewhere :D

In defining the beauty of a word in itself, I think it's based more on a ppearance and sound than meaning. Form rather than function, yes? Although, it helps when it has both.

[sivullinen]

Or maybe it's more obvious in English because the languages it took influences from are also important. I mean, Finnish certainly has some influences (like all the languages save Japanese and a few other), but from languages that are already half-dead or only spoken by equally few people as Finnish, so it's not like we'll notice. But, you'll notice if your words are from French... And I suppose there's a difference if French and English are similar because English stole French words or if Finnish and Estonian are similar because they were both developed from some language that is not anymore spoken. (I don't swear it happened that way. It's been years since I studied etymology at high school level and I'm not that certain about specifics. Anyway...)

In defining the beauty of a word in itself, I think it's based more on a ppearance and sound than meaning. Form rather than function, yes? Although, it helps when it has both.Yes, I agree. If it were just meaning, it'd be stupid to have your own beauty contest in each language, because

[nerwende]

There's of course a difference between a word that sounds beautiful, and a word that people associate with something beautiful, thus making it "feel" beautiful. Tolkien once wrote that cellardoor is a good example of a word that sounds much more beautiful than what it actually means.

With Finnish there's of course the difficulty of conjugation and such: for example I think that mereen (to the ocean) is more beautiful than meri (ocean). (What do you call making the variations of subjectives? I believe conjugation is only used with verbs?) Aaaanyway:
They didn't mention the classic alavilla mailla hallanvaara? It's impossible to choose just one word, so I'm going to mention hallava (pale grey), auer (the sort of haze in the heat), kipakka (fierce), rapea (crunchy), talvi (winter), aarnio (very ancient forest, usually of spruce) and tarina (story).

[sivullinen]

There's of course a difference between a word that sounds beautiful, and a word that people associate with something beautiful, thus making it "feel" beautiful.
Yes, there is. SK also gave an example of silava - pronounciation is pretty but the meaning is not in our fat-hating culture. And then there's rakkaus which is not a beautiful word but has a beautiful meaning...

for example I think that mereen (to the ocean) is more beautiful than meri (ocean).
I agree! I think all these different forms should be acceptable.

They didn't mention the classic alavilla mailla hallanvaara?
Yes, they did, but that's not one word, and that's what they're looking for. Though hallanvaara could qualify...

[firescribble]

I'm not sure about sommarvind. The actual word isn't that pretty. I like midvinter and rodna.

[sivullinen]

I think sommarvind pronounced with a very strong Swedish accent is a nice word, but not so much with Finnish accent :D

What does rodna mean? *too lazy to check dictionary*

[firescribble]

rodna = blush

*snicker*

[sivullinen]

Now that you mention of course I've heard that word before :D But I'm starting to forget Swedish, woe. Already two years since I last studied it... I should take my academic swedish course soon, or it'll be so difficult to try to remember it again...

[merihn]

If I could pronounce them, or hear them it would be better... but I like choice number four.
I have no idea how to say that hääyöaie one... so I couldn't say.

Hmm... english words that are nice. Ethereal is pretty awesome... I do like the sound of it.
♥

[sivullinen]

Yeah... if I'll figure out how to do voice posts with LJTalk I might be able to show you :D But I. Just. Don't. Get. It.

So you don't think 'mother' is beautiful, either?

[merihn]

Well, if you can call international numbers you can voice post... I have to call an international number cos they still only have US numbers... I call on my mobile and for a couple of minutes it only costs me a couple of dollars. To connect is like a dollar... I'm not sure how much it would be for you... you'd have to test it.
I couldn't work it out when I first tried to call, but I asked another Aussie who'd made a post and she helped me out.
They need to put international numbers up.

No, I don't really think it's a very beautiful word... it has a nice meaning, because mothers rock... but I don't think it actually sounds nice.

I love your icon... Sam/Dean rocks. *points to own icon*
Hmm... I need to write more fic. lol. Sam/Dean will take over the world.

♥

[sivullinen]

I don't want to call to an International number, it'd be too expensive. But I should be able to make an Internet phone call to some LJTalk number for free, but it's too complicated for my small brain...

Your icon = love.

[lickingbeads]

we were sometimes talking about beautiful finnish words, and at the time 'vesi' came to mind... it doesn't even sound pretty, really, but it looks beautiful... i know, doesn't make any sense O_o and of cource, the concept too is beautiful.

yeah, were you going for how beautiful the words themselves are, or the thing they're referring to?

[sivullinen]

I also think about how a word is written more than how it's pronounced when I think about beauty :D Probably because I often think about how to "write" my thought rather than say them in my head.

I think it'd be cool to be able to judge words just by what they are themselves, because otherwise it's just about what concept is beautiful, not word. So, 'mutainen' is more beautiful than 'rakkaus', to me, when we're talking about words :D