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Who needs consonants (Norwegian)

In the Central Norwegian dialect words have been so shortened that it's possible to construct sentences entirely made of vowels. This is a famous joke:A school kid is walking home after his first day at school. He meets a friend who asks: "Which class do you attend?" The child answers: Æ e i A, lit. "I am in (class) A". Then he asks back: "But what about you?" His friend answers: Å, æ e i A æ å!, lit. "oh, I am in (class) A, me too!"See here the meaning of the single words: æ - I, me; e - am, are, is; i - in; A - (class) A; å - oh, too.

Sent by: Magne

Comments

Jay, London 2010-10-26

Actually Catherine, r and l in Czech can be vowels. It depends on whether you use the phonetic or phonological definition of a vowel. I studied linguistics.

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Catherine 2008-09-21

Here is a vowel-less sentence for you, Tom. It is a Czech tounge twister. Vlk zmrzl, zhltl hrst zrn. The wolf froze, he swallowed a handful of grains.

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Alleigh 2008-07-19

The Romanian sentence (about Sheep) makes me think of the line in Old MacDonald - E I E I O. I wonder if that had its origin in one of these vowel-rich languages.

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SirJibby 2008-01-06

This reminds of a Romanian sentence composed only of vowels: Oaia aia e a ei, eu i-o iau meaning 'that sheep is hers, I'm taking it from her'..

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Jonatas 2008-03-25

In Brazilian Portuguese we have a joke spoken with the hippie/surfist accent, saying how'd they call their friends for a party oia o auê ai, lit. "see that party there!"

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Troels 2006-04-15

There is something very similar in Danish, which is of course close to Norwegian. In my local Danish dialect, we have this sentence: A æ u å æ ø i æ å, æ i å u å æ ø i æ å? It means: I am on the island in the river, are you also on the island in the river? All vowels, all one letter words.

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Tom 2006-02-24

This contrasts with Slovenian, where r, v and l can all serve as 'semivowels' (although they are pronounced as consonants). This creates almost unpronouncable words, such as vrh, peak, smrt, death, and cetrtek, Thursday. I would be interested to know of any vowel-less sentences - the complete opposite of this Norwegian example!

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