Who needs consonants (Norwegian)
In the Central Norwegian dialect words have been so shortened that it's possible to construct sentences entirely made of vowels. This is a famous joke:A school kid is walking home after his first day at school. He meets a friend who asks: "Which class do you attend?" The child answers: Æ e i A, lit. "I am in (class) A". Then he asks back: "But what about you?" His friend answers: Å, æ e i A æ å!, lit. "oh, I am in (class) A, me too!"See here the meaning of the single words: æ - I, me; e - am, are, is; i - in; A - (class) A; å - oh, too.
Sent by: Magne
Comments
Here is a vowel-less sentence for you, Tom. It is a Czech tounge twister. Vlk zmrzl, zhltl hrst zrn. The wolf froze, he swallowed a handful of grains.
The Romanian sentence (about Sheep) makes me think of the line in Old MacDonald - E I E I O. I wonder if that had its origin in one of these vowel-rich languages.
This reminds of a Romanian sentence composed only of vowels: Oaia aia e a ei, eu i-o iau meaning 'that sheep is hers, I'm taking it from her'..
In Brazilian Portuguese we have a joke spoken with the hippie/surfist accent, saying how'd they call their friends for a party oia o auê ai, lit. "see that party there!"
There is something very similar in Danish, which is of course close to Norwegian. In my local Danish dialect, we have this sentence: A æ u å æ ø i æ å, æ i å u å æ ø i æ å? It means: I am on the island in the river, are you also on the island in the river? All vowels, all one letter words.
This contrasts with Slovenian, where r, v and l can all serve as 'semivowels' (although they are pronounced as consonants). This creates almost unpronouncable words, such as vrh, peak, smrt, death, and cetrtek, Thursday. I would be interested to know of any vowel-less sentences - the complete opposite of this Norwegian example!
Actually Catherine, r and l in Czech can be vowels. It depends on whether you use the phonetic or phonological definition of a vowel. I studied linguistics.
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