Why Does English Sound So Nice and Great?
Hi, I believe it is no more than a personal feeling. Everyone sees his language as nice and great. The question, 'Why is the English language so nice and great?' can be a subjective one because beauty is in the eye of the beholder or, in this case, nice sounds are in the ear of the beholder.
The Essence of Linguistic Beauty
The English language is nice and great because all languages are nice and great. One of the nice and great things about languages is that being nice and great is an inherent quality of them. The real answer to the question of how English sounds to someone other than oneself is that it's quite personal. Having grown up reading, writing, and speaking in public, including listening to the radio and television, I have developed a regionless accent or 'Received English' as it is called.
Accents and Yodelling
To my ear, some but certainly not all English accents sound nice. The nasal drawl of some American accents frustrates me, whereas the musical lilt of a Jamaican or Welsh accent is delightful. Many other languages, such as Dutch or German, might sound harsh, but this is largely due to accents and undoubtedly sounds quite normal to the native speaker. In the end, a lot depends on the subject being discussed. A gentle, informative, and non-contentious topic is more likely to sound better than one inciting hatred or a bad teacher screaming at their students.
The Historical Evolution of English
The beauty of the English language lies partly in its rich and complex history. The original inhabitants of the British Isles, excluding Ireland, were Brythonic Celts or Brittonic in England, Wales, and southern Scotland; Pictish Celts in most of the rest of Scotland; and Goidelic Celts in western Scotland. These people spoke versions of Common Brittonic with significant accent and dialect differences over short distances. The Romans introduced Latin, and a form known as Vulgar British Latin was spoken alongside Brittonic but probably not by many.
Following the fall of the Roman Empire in the early fifth century, Anglo-Saxons arrived in the east, bringing a Frisian dialect that still sounds familiar today. This language lies at the heart of the modern English language, though at the same time, Latin, Pictish, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, and Brittonic were spoken - the latter being mostly confined to Wales and Cornwall. In the ninth century, Viking raids and subsequent settlement introduced yet more language, making the northern parts of England distinct with pronounced Norse-influence.
Englands' unification under King Aethelstan in the tenth century had very little effect on language. The Norman Conquest of 1066, with Normans being Norsemen, brought more linguistic variation. Over the centuries, English has adopted many words from other countries and cultures, such as Hindi during the Raj. The result is that different regions of Britain have significantly different linguistic histories and influences.
Accent and Dialect Variability
Accent and dialect vary greatly across Britain, with two people saying the same thing using the same word sounding completely different. For example, "water" can rhyme with "mortar" or "shatter." Words that might mean the same thing, like "stream" in the south and "beck" in the north, are used differently. All are correct, but some regions retain more similarities to Shakespeare's or even Chaucer’s times than others. However, these accents and dialects are becoming increasingly diluted.
Local accents and dialects can be challenging for the untrained ear, even for British people. For instance, the name "York" has changed over a thousand years from Eboracum, Eoforwic, and Yorvic. Boston, once "Botolph’s Town," is another example. On the other hand, some remote areas in Northern Britain still speak a language akin to Shakespeare's. These accents and dialects are becoming increasingly infrequent.
By comparison, colonial English in America, Australia, New Zealand, etc., was established over relatively short periods and has generally blended many accents, losing many quirks and irregularities that British English retains. Traditional pronunciation has often been changed where a word is learned from a book without the original pronunciation.
Overall, the answer to why English sounds so nice and great is deeply rooted in its history, dialects, and the personal nature of how we perceive language.