Comments on: Tyler Drumheller, Come on Down! You’re the Latest Former Government Official About to be Accused of Being a Liberal Partisan Hack Out to Sell a Book!

By: Yosef

Yosef — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 05:05:41 +0000

Man, and all I can speak apart from English is Spanish, Italian, Latin and German! (and the occasional word in Russian)

By: Jillian

Jillian — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:37:36 +0000

Welsh has the spitting.

Arabic has the loogey-ing.

Hebrew gets both.

Makes me think about re-converting!

By: tigrismus

tigrismus — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:37:34 +0000

I don’t know, Brad, but I’d take the fact that he does as better proof for intelligent design than the mouth-feel of bananas.

And Jillian, I got your number, duckie!

By: Thorlac

Thorlac — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:35:42 +0000

Welsh still isn’t as bad as Arabic, though.Ah, Arabic isn’t that bad. Sure, I had a sore throat for the entire first month of language school, but the beer helped fix that.

By: celticgirl

celticgirl — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:34:38 +0000

For the love of God people! Hide your chimichangas!

By: Jillian

Jillian — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:30:59 +0000

But it’s spelled “Luxury Yacht”!!

By: Brad R.

Brad R. — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:30:05 +0000

tigrismus- why does he look EXACTLY LIKE I IMAGINED HE’D LOOK?

Again, the parody or reality question rears its ugly head again…

By: tigrismus

tigrismus — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:28:00 +0000

I think the double ‘g’ is pronounced “Throatwarbler Mangrove.”

By: Gavin M.

Gavin M. — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:22:59 +0000

Hugh at TBogg

That’s a good Welsh name too, isn’t it?

By: Jillian

Jillian — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:17:15 +0000

DiÃ , that’s a sorry picture. That looks like someone who could easily win the war on chimichangas all by himself.

It cries out to be photoshopped!

By: tigrismus

tigrismus — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:14:22 +0000

Someone posted a link with a photo of ab Hugh at TBogg... Why, I bet he's as afraid of pwca as Michael Gaynor is of leprechauns!

By: celticgirl

celticgirl — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:12:34 +0000

Well, divide and conquer, the motto of the Saesneg.

By: Mal de mer

Mal de mer — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:08:58 +0000

I run with a group of Celtic scholars, and our running joke is that the Welsh got all consonants and the Irish got all the vowels.

And we know who to blame for that…dreaded Sassenach.

My last attempt at language was Malay. I decided that’s it…English is man’s natural tongue, and everyone should speak it. ;)

In reality, I just got lazy and old. Malay isn’t even that hard.

By: Jillian

Jillian — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 03:05:01 +0000

There are tricks to spelling in Irish that make it easier.

Consonants at the beginning of feminine nouns in certain cases are lenited, which means you just add an “h” behind them.

Consonants are either broad or narrow – a narrow consonant is basically just an aspirated consonant. To make a consonant broad, it must be flanked on both sides by broad vowels – a or o. To make it narrow, it must be flanked by narrow vowels – i, e, or u. As long as you remember never to have a broad vowel on one side of a consonant and a narrow vowel on the other, you’ll be okay.

See how simple that was?

By: celticgirl

celticgirl — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:55:34 +0000

Mal: I run with a group of Celtic scholars, and our running joke is that the Welsh got all consonants and the Irish got all the vowels.

My husband speaks fluent Cornish and is learning Scots Gallic, which has me completely flummoxed. I’ve decided my brain is too old to take on any more languages. Welsh broke it!

By: Mal de mer

Mal de mer — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:54:18 +0000

A friend of mine from Egypt told me that really giving the glottal stop a lot of force and pronouncing way in the back of the throat is sign of masculinity. So only sissy-boys and girls pronounce the glotal with less “deep throat” (!)

I can only do the German glottal stop. Very wimpy, if you ask me.

By: Jillian

Jillian — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:49:48 +0000

Welsh still isn’t as bad as Arabic, though. There’s a glottal stop in Arabic which I got taught to make by being told “remember the last time you got too friendly with a bottle of Jaegermeister, and try to replicate the sounds you made the next morning”.

By: Mary Jones

Mary Jones — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:49:35 +0000

Thanks, Kathleen–I’ll have to give that tutorial a shot. :)

And Mal, I have to agree–Welsh is easier for me to comprehend than Irish, even though I know where the similarities are. It’s all those Irish “h”s–I find it incredibly confusing for some reason.

By: Mal de mer

Mal de mer — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:44:43 +0000

I still find a Welsh a hell of lot easier to spell than Irish.

I love that “ll.” It’s like how Ann Landers pronounced her “s’s” A speech impediment as a legimitimate phoneme.

In case anyone’s scanning for intercultural insult, I’m just kidding. I love all languages (especially Welsh; it’s beautiful)…except West Country English. That’s hideous!

By: celticgirl

celticgirl — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 02:39:14 +0000

Mary, I’ve been a part-time learner for the better part of three years and I still have days where I struggle *sigh*. It’s not the pronunciation that’ll kill ya – it’s the grammar and the mutations.

Better not go there…