Describing the differences between languages
To help create descriptive differences in the way my characters talk I am looking for a list of how each language sounds.
For example the German language has lots of clusters of consonants, and could be described as harsh.
I understand that many of the descriptions of how a language sounds are subjective, however German objectively sounds different to Chinese, and it is these differences I want to describe.
I was hoping there was something I could use to give me a starting point, as the only other option I can think of is to start listening to recordings of people speaking in various language and begin to build my own set of observations on how they sound. However this will end up being entirely my opinion, and I was hoping to get something a bit more universally accepted.
Although I have only mentioned German and Chinese here, I am looking at a very wide range of languages.
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1 answer
I think doing your own research and making your own observations is perfectly legitimate.
You can also get a bunch of friends over and have everyone listen to the same video/audio recordings and take notes, and then discuss afterwards. This will allow you to note similarities (e.g., does everyone think German is harsh, or just me?) and also hear how other people word their observations (one says "harsh," one says "lots of fricatives," one says "why does he always sound angry?") so you have a range of verbiage to draw on.
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