The Beauty of Languages
The Beauty of Languages
  • reporter Yoon Seok-sang
  • 승인 2021.06.27 19:01
  • 댓글 0
이 기사를 공유합니다

Why is learning a foreign language so hard? Why do people enjoy the nuance of dialects, vernacular, exotic accents, and such? Why are catchy phrases always accompanied by a specific tone or an accent? What makes literature so fun and diverse? What made me love writing? Why did I become a newspaper reporter in the first place? These are all questions that make me ponder about my interest in languages, my passion as a journalist, and the never-ending quest for my future.
The endless combination of the alphabet (or the equivalent in your language) is truly fascinating, both in written and spoken language. For me, it was the unique sound of different languages, or even the same language in different regions that first caught my interest. Let us look at French for example. French has a distinctive rolling “r” sound that many of you might be familiar with. There is also an abundance of silent letters, and also a tendency to connect the pronunciation of words smoothly in one sentence—an example being liaison. These traits, combined, create a very sleek and alluring sound. French also has many interesting features that only stand out in written form. Silent final consonants make different words sound the exact same. This appears mostly in verbs, where the conjugated forms are spelled differently but sound alike. Generally, a pattern that dictates which forms are pronounced equally exists; these verbs are said to have an “L” or a boot shape. But French also has so many irregularities, and this makes the language so much more difficult yet diverse.
English also has so many variations, as different cultures came together in a huge melting pot (this applies to both the U.S. and the U.K.). Some interesting forms that caught my ears include Western American English, African-American Vernacular English, Roadman slang, etc. The things I like most about these language variations are the structural destruction of conventional grammar and the extensive use of rhymes and alliterations that give rhythm and life to every sentence. On top of that, the creative use of words to form funny yet accurate expressions is also quite exquisite.
Then again, as you sit down with a piece of paper and a pen, you can dive into a whole other world of sentence crafting. You can do whatever you want—you can choose to write descriptive paragraphs that tingle the readers’ imagination. You can write concise and dense sentences that convey what you want to say in a small package. You can lead someone along a path of logical statements letting them understand a difficult subject. You can gather all the information scattered across the world into a single document, one example being news articles.
What got me into becoming a journalist? Dare I say it, the satisfaction that comes from crafting words into an article, cramming information into a small yet carefully organized structure is what initially drew me in. I wanted to provide the best reading material to readers, something that was informative yet easy to follow and understand. Every time I have something to write about, I look into dictionaries and thesauruses to see if there is a better term or expression for it. The English (and of course, any other languages as well) lexicon is quite large, and there are infinite ways to assemble those words. My goal is not to memorize all those words and expressions; that would be too much for me. Rather, I want to know just enough to recognize and understand sentences as they come and go, and also to compose some neat sentences that have a nice sound to them. I truly hope these skills will amass over time. And for you readers, I hope that you can also take an interest in different languages, not just the vocabulary and grammar but rather the beautiful sonic resonance that each and every language uniquely conveys.

 

Editor-in-chief Yoon Seok-sang
Editor-in-chief Yoon Seok-sang