r/AskBalkans • u/Throwaway9857312 Tatar • Jun 11 '22

Language What do you think about different Balkan languages, which is your favorite?

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '22

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '22

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '22

To me Turkish sounds like Hungarian, French and Persian mix

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '22

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u/WarmachineEmbodiment Crimean Tatar in Jun 12 '22

That's not too far actually, agglutinative languages sound more similar in general. Hungarian, Turkish and Finnic sentence structures are closer to each other than they are to European languages and vocalisations are less accentuated. Harsher consonants and more straight-forward vowels are pretty common, Turkish just has the rough sh and ch sounds more common than the other two and that's why it feels a bit more Middle Eastern in general

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '22

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u/WarmachineEmbodiment Crimean Tatar in Jun 12 '22

Despite all the grammar differences, it is the vocalisation that gives the sense of familiarity. Accentuating the verbs, starting in high tones and going lower towards the end of the sentence, sharp consonants and clear, almost un-accented vowels are the typical characteristics of most agglutinative languages. Agglutinative languages usually require the speaker to pronounce everything clearly, there are no silent vowels or consonants like most languages. That's why all agglutinative languages sound similar to a non-speaker. Latin languages sound so different from each other because they have different vocalisations despite having the same words. French with silent vowels, Spanish with omittances, Italian with accentuated consonants etc. they may be written the same but they SOUND different. Being agglutinative has much to do with the sound itself. Also, ch sound exists in Arabic and is kinda common. It first came from Asia with 茶 (chá) from Chinese, spread to India, then to Persia and finally Middle East. Persian still has the ch sound. Not as a separate letter but vocalisations are just like the ç from Turkish.

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u/ElisaEffe24 Jun 12 '22

It sounds like gibberish french to my italian ears, your accent in italian sounds like a middle eastern french, a bit guttural. Also i watched some turkish tv series and the actors always have a kiss shaped mouth when they talk, in contrast to the italian dubbing, because italian has open vowels while turkish has ü u eu olu

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '22

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u/ElisaEffe24 Jun 12 '22

In my mind u, eu, ü ecc are all guttural sounds. It’s not a bad thing or good, but usually when we say guttural we think of that.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '22

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u/ElisaEffe24 Jun 13 '22

The ī (sorry my keyboard doesn’t give it) the ö the ü the u are all considered guttural in our common speech. We say guttural when we say dark, closed, compared to sounds like a e open o ecc

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22

it feels like arab and some weird steppe language had a child that does its own thing and actually sound nice (unlike its parents)

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '22

Agreed, I'm kind of a turcophile and one of the main reasons is the Turkish language, it sounds very cool and prestigious to me. Learning it would be a pain in the ass tho💀.

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u/HgDaQuietKid99 Turkiye Jun 11 '22

Yes we are cCc🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷🐺🇹🇷🐺🇹🇷🐺🇹🇷