3 ms·

In English, you can change the relative lengths of syllables in a word and it's still the same word. In Greek this isn't the case: the relative lengths of the v

by asolove 13y ago

In English, you can change the relative lengths of syllables in a word and it's still the same word. In Greek this isn't the case: the relative lengths of the vowels is part of what defines the word. Maybe you don't believe me, since syllable lengths are so fungible in English. But it really does sound wrong in classical Greek. A good way to get a feel for this is to imagine saying English words while putting the emPHAsis on the wrong syllaBLE. Sometimes it's just a bit weird, sometimes it's totally wrong, and sometimes it actually turns into a different word. You wouldn't write a poem and try to fit the meter by asking readers to change which syllable in a word is emphasized. (Or at least, you would do so only rarely and for a specific reason.) Now, in Greek, instead of emphasis, the relative length of vowels in syllables is prescribed and certain words are distinguished on this basis. In fact, whereas meter in English poetry is based on emphasized syllables, meter in classical Greek poetry is based on syllable length. So there is reason to think it wouldn't change just to fit a song melody. This is also why, though you can read Homer in English that is metrical, you can't get a feel for heroic verse without hearing it in the Greek. Let me give an indirect example that shows why this kind of reasoning doesn't work across languages. In English, we often indicate sarcasm, emphasis, or a question by intonation. A heavy, slow word might be more important, or a word that is pronounced with the tone rising might indicate a question or uncertainty. This is because "a word" in English is the same word regardless of the tone with which it is said. But in Chinese, the "same" sound with different tones actually is a different word. So in Chinese, you can't indicate a question with tone, because that would actually make a different word. Instead, you have to move words around, so that to indicate a word is the highlight of a sentence you move it to the beginning, or to indicate which word you aren't certain about you move it to the end. Human language is fascinating!

corin_ 13y ago
Thanks for going into that - so in (ancient) Greek, were there words which were the same as each other but for syllable length? Your mention of syllable length being the basis of meter in poetry makes sense, but this is often the case in English too, while English music allows us poetic license to tweak away from the norm. I also think you're slightly wrong (or at least exaggerated) in saying that in English "you can't change which syllable is emphasized more than very rarely or it sounds like nonsense". If you take a piece of music and then alter this then sure, but actually the emphasis will often be slightly different to how it would be spoken. I wanted to double check on this belief, and thought about it while listening to Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" (which was already playing) and Stanford's Magnificat in G to add a different genre, in both cases the emphasis is often on different syllables to how we would speak it if we just saw the text without knowing the music. Anyway, thanks again for the reply, I guess it falls (at least to an extent) into the "simplified for the BBC audience", which is much preferable to the alternative of "it's bullshit". :) edit: Here's the Stanford piece (with music+lyrics if you're not familiar with the text already): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7UorDdRg60 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7UorDdRg60 Was just a random picking off the top of my head (added bonus that it's, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful things ever written)
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  > so in (ancient) Greek, were there words which were the same as each other but for syllable length? Yes, of course. I know very little classical greek, but here's an example from Latin: malum - adjective, "bad" maalum - noun, "apple" (I've written the long 'a' as two 'a's, which is not normal practice). Contrastive vowel length is a very normal language feature; consider modern Japanese. > I wanted to double check on this belief, and thought about it while listening to Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" (which was already playing) and Stanford's Magnificat in G to add a different genre, in both cases the emphasis is often on different syllables to how we would speak it if we just saw the text without knowing the music. Modern songs and (especially) poetry vary in quality in how well the natural rhythm of their language fits the rhythm they're set to (there's no particular reason to believe that this only occurs in the modern day). It's definitely true that there's a lot of material that doesn't do that well, but I personally find that sort of thing jarring, and ovrwhelmingly the rhythm of the language and the rhythm of the piece are compatible. Given a large enough corpus, it's quite possible to figure out what rhythm(s) a word really wants to have. Finally, remember how I said that marking vowel length in writing was not normal practice at the time? You might be interested to know that we know the vowel lengths in Latin words from their use in poetry. Fun side note -- there's a famous Latin poet called Ovid; his name in Latin is Ovidius (four syllables: O-vi-di-us). All of those vowels are short. The last syllable is easily malleable, as it's a case ending, but the fact that the three syllables before it are all short means that Ovid is always referred to in poetry by a nickname, since Latin poetry essentially never allows for three short syllables in a row.
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
    another popular example from Latin: occido (short i) - verb, "die" occido (long i) - verb, "kill"
    - leoc 13y ago
      It doesn't seem different to, for example, 'hit' versus 'heat' in English.
snogglethorpe 13y ago
> In Greek this isn't the case: the relative lengths of the vowels is part of what defines the word. The same is true of Japanese, but nonetheless, Japanese music is often all over the place when it comes to the pacing/rhythm/pronunciation of lyrics, just as English music is. In music, ease of understanding isn't always the primary concern....
- mchaver 13y ago
  Similarly, in Mandarin Chinese the tone is generally ignored when singing. However, in Cantonese the tone is "tak[en] ... into consideration" http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2010/12/06/tones-in-chinese-songs http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2010/12/06/tones-in-...
Dylan16807 13y ago
Songs abuse language a lot more than normal speaking, though. From what I understand Chinese halfway gives up on tones for the purposes of singing. And forget simply misplacing emphasis in English, how about forcing the word 'this' to have an extended E sound in the middle of it for the sake of still-not-quite-rhyming with the next line?

by asolove 13y ago

corin_ 13y ago

Thanks for going into that - so in (ancient) Greek, were there words which were the same as each other but for syllable length? Your mention of syllable length being the basis of meter in poetry makes sense, but this is often the case in English too, while English music allows us poetic license to tweak away from the norm. I also think you're slightly wrong (or at least exaggerated) in saying that in English "you can't change which syllable is emphasized more than very rarely or it sounds like nonsense". If you take a piece of music and then alter this then sure, but actually the emphasis will often be slightly different to how it would be spoken. I wanted to double check on this belief, and thought about it while listening to Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" (which was already playing) and Stanford's Magnificat in G to add a different genre, in both cases the emphasis is often on different syllables to how we would speak it if we just saw the text without knowing the music. Anyway, thanks again for the reply, I guess it falls (at least to an extent) into the "simplified for the BBC audience", which is much preferable to the alternative of "it's bullshit". :) edit: Here's the Stanford piece (with music+lyrics if you're not familiar with the text already): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7UorDdRg60 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7UorDdRg60 Was just a random picking off the top of my head (added bonus that it's, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful things ever written)

thaumasiotes 13y ago
> so in (ancient) Greek, were there words which were the same as each other but for syllable length? Yes, of course. I know very little classical greek, but here's an example from Latin: malum - adjective, "bad" maalum - noun, "apple" (I've written the long 'a' as two 'a's, which is not normal practice). Contrastive vowel length is a very normal language feature; consider modern Japanese. > I wanted to double check on this belief, and thought about it while listening to Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" (which was already playing) and Stanford's Magnificat in G to add a different genre, in both cases the emphasis is often on different syllables to how we would speak it if we just saw the text without knowing the music. Modern songs and (especially) poetry vary in quality in how well the natural rhythm of their language fits the rhythm they're set to (there's no particular reason to believe that this only occurs in the modern day). It's definitely true that there's a lot of material that doesn't do that well, but I personally find that sort of thing jarring, and ovrwhelmingly the rhythm of the language and the rhythm of the piece are compatible. Given a large enough corpus, it's quite possible to figure out what rhythm(s) a word really wants to have. Finally, remember how I said that marking vowel length in writing was not normal practice at the time? You might be interested to know that we know the vowel lengths in Latin words from their use in poetry. Fun side note -- there's a famous Latin poet called Ovid; his name in Latin is Ovidius (four syllables: O-vi-di-us). All of those vowels are short. The last syllable is easily malleable, as it's a case ending, but the fact that the three syllables before it are all short means that Ovid is always referred to in poetry by a nickname, since Latin poetry essentially never allows for three short syllables in a row.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  another popular example from Latin: occido (short i) - verb, "die" occido (long i) - verb, "kill"
  - leoc 13y ago
    It doesn't seem different to, for example, 'hit' versus 'heat' in English.

snogglethorpe 13y ago

> In Greek this isn't the case: the relative lengths of the vowels is part of what defines the word. The same is true of Japanese, but nonetheless, Japanese music is often all over the place when it comes to the pacing/rhythm/pronunciation of lyrics, just as English music is. In music, ease of understanding isn't always the primary concern....

mchaver 13y ago
Similarly, in Mandarin Chinese the tone is generally ignored when singing. However, in Cantonese the tone is "tak[en] ... into consideration" http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2010/12/06/tones-in-chinese-songs http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2010/12/06/tones-in-...

Dylan16807 13y ago

Songs abuse language a lot more than normal speaking, though. From what I understand Chinese halfway gives up on tones for the purposes of singing. And forget simply misplacing emphasis in English, how about forcing the word 'this' to have an extended E sound in the middle of it for the sake of still-not-quite-rhyming with the next line?