LINGUIST List 2.251

Monday, 27 May 1991

Disc: Tongue Twisters

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. , RE: Tongue Twisters
2. bert peeters, Dutch tongue twisters
3. Hoskuldur Thrainsson, Re: Icelandic Tongue Twisters
4. Richard Coates, Tongue twister in Catalan

Korean tongue twisters:

khongjang kongjang kgjangjangen kanjang kongjang kongjangjang-ita.
ssoneed-beans facory factor-manager-TOP soysauce factory manager-DCL

As for (the) seasoned-bean factory manager, he is the soysauce factory manager.




Jo cholchang-e soe changsal-en sae soe changsal-ita.
thatsteelwindow-Posss iron steelbar-Top new iron steelbar-DCL

The steel bars of that prison (room) are new (steel bars).

The pot calls the kettle black. I'm the pot, so to speak, and Dominique
Estival is the kettle. However, the kettle was black before the pot, who
turned black just the other day...
Here is my last Dutch tongue twister again - with the one word that went
missing in the last line (and even - horror of horrors or mother of all
horrors - in the English translation)

Wie niets weet en weet dat hij niets weet
The one who doesn't know anything and knows that he doesn't know anything

weet veel meer dan iemand
knows a lot more than the one

die niets weet en niet weet dat hij niets weet
who doesn't know anything and doesn't know that he doesn't know anything

Bert Peeters <peeterstasman.cc.utas.edu.au>

Just a short Icelandic tongue twister with an international
relevance:
 Frank Zappa i svampfrakka
 Frank Zappa in a sponge-coat
Try saying this one ten times in a row. If you succeed you have
mastered the famous Icelandic phonological component.
Hoski

Re your Catalan tongue twister forwarded by Milton Azevedo: I am
informed by a Catalanist, Max Wheeler, that this is not so much a
tongue twister as a shibboleth designed to identify non-native
speakers (specifically Castilian speakers) as it contains phonemes
lacking in Castilian (/dz/, /dzh/, /zh/) in close proximity.

A paradigm Catalan tongue twister is

Plou poc, pero' per lo poc que plou, plou prou

"It doesn't rain much, but considering how little it rains, it rains 
enough"

Richard Coates
U. of Sussex

[End Linguist List, Vol. 2, No. 251]