No, this post is not about desires or longings, but about a different type of aspiration.
If you are unfamiliar with the linguistic meaning of aspiration, please hold your open hand up to your mouth and say the word 'tap'. For most dialects of English you would have felt two little puffs of air as you pronounced the word. Those puffs of air are called aspiration.
Now say the word 'dab'. You probably didn't feel much aspiration with that word.
In English we aspirate the letters p, t, k, and ch. We do not aspirate b, d, g, or j.
Bangla aspirates all of those sounds...and doesn't aspirate them. That means that whether I aspirate them or not, the word's meaning changes. On top of that, whereas English has the one aspirated t sound, Bangla has 4 different t's!!!
Anyway, spending so much time focusing on aspiration has had one odd affect. When I hear English being spoken, the aspiration sometimes feels really harsh and shocking...why must we fire puffs of air out of our mouths all the time! It's so abrasive! I never realized it before.
I wonder if non-native English speakers ever feel like we are trying to blow them over with all of our aspirational words!
If you are unfamiliar with the linguistic meaning of aspiration, please hold your open hand up to your mouth and say the word 'tap'. For most dialects of English you would have felt two little puffs of air as you pronounced the word. Those puffs of air are called aspiration.
Now say the word 'dab'. You probably didn't feel much aspiration with that word.
In English we aspirate the letters p, t, k, and ch. We do not aspirate b, d, g, or j.
Bangla aspirates all of those sounds...and doesn't aspirate them. That means that whether I aspirate them or not, the word's meaning changes. On top of that, whereas English has the one aspirated t sound, Bangla has 4 different t's!!!
Anyway, spending so much time focusing on aspiration has had one odd affect. When I hear English being spoken, the aspiration sometimes feels really harsh and shocking...why must we fire puffs of air out of our mouths all the time! It's so abrasive! I never realized it before.
I wonder if non-native English speakers ever feel like we are trying to blow them over with all of our aspirational words!
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