Dear Friends,
Tamara, say "gracht" (canal)
I'd do my best (imagine choking on a chicken bone twice, with an "aaah" in
the middle), and the room would explode in friendly laughter; "ah..."
they'd say, "you *might* 'make it' in *Belgium*, but, in Netherlands, you
need to practice a lot more..."
I had to laugh at that. When I was learning Dutch the phrase they used to
give me was:
"acht en tachtig verschrekkelijkke kacheltjes" [88 terrible little stoves].
My spelling is no doubt off a bit.
"Glottal" is right, Lynn; we have trouble coping with it because, except
for the Netherlands version of Dutch, glottal stops of that intensity are
used only in African and Arabic languages;
Actually I don't regard the "g" and "ch" in Dutch as glottal stops at all.
Yes, they are guttural but not stopped. Aslo there are many Aboriginal
Australian languages which have really good glottal stops in them. In the
Gupapuynggu family of languages of Nth East Arnhem Land, the glottal stop
is actually a letter in their alphabet and written with an apostrophe, e.g.:-
"wangalili' ngarra marrtji" - "to home I go".
David in Ballarat
And, to finish, here's a "delicious" (love the multiple meanings <g>)
addition to the original "Van Gogh's Family Tree":
From: R.P.
When I forwarded the Van Gogh joke, my malacologist friend (studies
snails) replied with this:
And of course, his snail-eating French cousin... Escar Gogh
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line:
unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line:
unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
