The other day I was in BabyGap with my family when I heard a guy with a Hispanic accent with a lisp. He wasn’t speaking with a Spanish (Castillian) accent; he had a lisp. This got me to thinking about speech impediments in other languages. What are they? Can a native French speaker have a lisp? While there is the “s” sound in French – s’il vous plait for example – there is no th sound. Zees is why zhey replace ze “th” with “z” or “s” now zat I sink about it. They’ve never heard the sound so after a point in childhood they’re unable to make it, BUT if a native French speaker has an orthodontic condition that would create a lisp in English will they naturally, spontaneously be able to make the “th” sound even though they’ve never heard it? Or is a French lisp something completely different? Could a speech impediment in one language be an advantage in speaking another? Timothy Zahn has a minor sub-plot in his Star Wars book Heir to the Empire that deals with this. Princess Leia has difficulty understanding Chewbacca because the Wookie language is highly dependent on harmonics. When she goes to the Wookie homeworld she can understand the diplomat she’s dealing with much better than she can Chewbacca. So she flat out asks Chewie, “What the f*&k, Chewie? You been a stutterin’ f#$kin’ pr!*k this whole f*^kin’time?” Well, that’s if Joe Pesci was playing Princess Leia (see title of post). Chewbacca doesn’t have the speech impediment. The diplomat does. It just happens to be an impediment that makes it easier for humans to decipher what’s being said. It’s an interesting idea and I wonder if there are actual Earth languages where this phenomenon might take place - a speech impediment in one's native language being an advantage in speaking another.
This reminds me of the Japanese exchange student I worked with in college. He was barely conversational in English so he had absolutely no chance in all of hockey sticks of saying my name intelligibly. He wound up calling me by my last name. He was a nice guy
4 comments:
Yes, your mind does wander. I'm glad you have a place to write your intellectual ramblings. I've never wondered about this issue but it is interesting.
Impediment or language difference - the Flied Lice that came with my moo goo gai pan in Chinatown?
All that higher-level thinking... Maybe the guy was just gay!
Attention LAMBDA members; This comment was satire, much like the cover of the New Yorker. The above statement was not an attack on gay people... it was a only a joke that utilized the stereotype of lisping to portray the irony that LJ’s mind may have wandered unnecessarily.
Before I moved to Boston, I taught ballet in Atlantic Beach to a woman from Revere, Mass. Revere is sort of the Northside equivalent to Boston. I was quite sure this woman had a speech impediment, and remained of that opinion until I moved here and met MANY people with the same impediment. The accent took practice getting used to. On the other hand, when my cousin visited us from the Caribbean, he quite readily understood the speech-impaired Bostonians, though he did have trouble understanding MD's southern accent. No telling what he thought of that.
Interesting post.
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