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Melanie Bettinelli's avatar

Fascinating. Thank you.

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Joffre Swait's avatar

You're welcome!

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Robert Charboneau's avatar

A great summary, thanks Joffre. I do love the mixture of syllablic and accentual in English. Each language is unique in the tools it has. French doesn't have lexical stress at all, and its cadence rises at the end of lines

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Brad Donovan's avatar

That was a really interesting explanation of syllabic compression and it's effect on English rhythm. It makes sense to me. The best oratory I've ever heard (or delivered) was very staccato, compressed, rhythmic. See what I just did? I wrote in a "staccato, compressed, rhythmic" way. 😎

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Joffre Swait's avatar

You're over her nailing it. With a hammer!

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Brad Donovan's avatar

Haha! Winston Churchill is worth a listen. His speeches are things we are fortunate to have recordings of.

There is also Tyndales translation of Genesis 1.

“In the beginning

God created

the heavens and

the earth”

That's wonderful compression, and marvelous poetry.

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