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That's an interesting point. As a native speaker of English, there certainly are phrases that strike me as ugly, but usually it takes some reflection to see the

That's an interesting point. As a native speaker of English, there certainly are phrases that strike me as ugly, but usually it takes some reflection to see the ugliness. This makes me think that one's failure to see the ugliness in one's own language is just a result of being used to the way it sounds, ugly or not. (By the way: yes, I actually have heard people say that they wished that they spoke another language because it sounds nicer than theirs. English speakers say this about French all the time -- though, as always, it's hard to say whether this is because French "really is" [whatever that means] prettier sounding, or due to cultural factors. I've also heard a native speaker of Korean say she wished she was an English speaker instead, because English is nicer sounding. This is just another anecdote, though. Who knows a person's real reason for saying such a thing. That's why this whole paragraph is, I now realize, in parentheses.)

jordigh 12y ago
One more thing: painting a language as ugly is a very broad thing to do. Is 99 Luftballons an ugly song because it's in German? Are Mussolini's speeches beautiful because they're in Italian? In the original case of the orcs' Black Speech in Tolkein, they were a race incapable of saying anything pretty because of their language. These are the broad fantastical racism undertones that really bug me about Tolkein's mythology, and they mirror a real undercurrent in people's modes of thought.
- pdabbadabba 12y ago
  I agree with your second paragraph. But I think the comparison with Black Speech has driven you a little off the mark about what people actually say about real languages. I don't think anyone says that you can't say anything pretty in a so-called "ugly language." They only mean that some tend to sound less pleasing than others. So with your 99 Luftballons example, nobody ever said that nothing in German can ever be nice sounding. And for the latter, I think you're conflating beauty with moral value. Personally, I don't know what Mussolini's speeches actually sounded like, so I can't comment. Again, I cannot see how this is a difficult position to accept: some sounds sound worse than others. Spoken languages are made up of sounds. So why is it so hard to accept that some languages contain more pleasing sounds than others. Of course, as I've already agreed, there can be a lot more at work than this, including racism. But as a general proposition, I don't see how you can hold that judgments about what languages are ugly are fundamentally racist. I also don't see how you've addressed the issue that the categories of people that we regard as speaking an ugly language only weakly correlate (if at all -- obviously this is not a mathematical exercise so I cannot be too precise here, unfortunately) with groups to which we have broad racial biases. I suppose I can't rule out that there are people out there in the U.S. or western Europe who would tell you, as a general proposition, that African and Middle Eastern languages are ugly. If so, those people are, I agree, letting their racial biases drive their aesthetic judgments about the qualities of language. But I don't think this is the typical case.

jordigh 12y ago

One more thing: painting a language as ugly is a very broad thing to do. Is 99 Luftballons an ugly song because it's in German? Are Mussolini's speeches beautiful because they're in Italian? In the original case of the orcs' Black Speech in Tolkein, they were a race incapable of saying anything pretty because of their language. These are the broad fantastical racism undertones that really bug me about Tolkein's mythology, and they mirror a real undercurrent in people's modes of thought.

pdabbadabba 12y ago
I agree with your second paragraph. But I think the comparison with Black Speech has driven you a little off the mark about what people actually say about real languages. I don't think anyone says that you can't say anything pretty in a so-called "ugly language." They only mean that some tend to sound less pleasing than others. So with your 99 Luftballons example, nobody ever said that nothing in German can ever be nice sounding. And for the latter, I think you're conflating beauty with moral value. Personally, I don't know what Mussolini's speeches actually sounded like, so I can't comment. Again, I cannot see how this is a difficult position to accept: some sounds sound worse than others. Spoken languages are made up of sounds. So why is it so hard to accept that some languages contain more pleasing sounds than others. Of course, as I've already agreed, there can be a lot more at work than this, including racism. But as a general proposition, I don't see how you can hold that judgments about what languages are ugly are fundamentally racist. I also don't see how you've addressed the issue that the categories of people that we regard as speaking an ugly language only weakly correlate (if at all -- obviously this is not a mathematical exercise so I cannot be too precise here, unfortunately) with groups to which we have broad racial biases. I suppose I can't rule out that there are people out there in the U.S. or western Europe who would tell you, as a general proposition, that African and Middle Eastern languages are ugly. If so, those people are, I agree, letting their racial biases drive their aesthetic judgments about the qualities of language. But I don't think this is the typical case.