Englische Aussprache - herrlicher Wahnsinn

Ist Sprache nicht wunderbar? Da sie ständig gebraucht wird und sich dadurch ständig verändert, stetig und auch sprunghaft, ist sie wie ein nur scheinbar bekanntes Wunderland. Man denkt man kennt sich aus und "Peng!" ist man in einer niegesehenen Gegend gelandet! Wenn ich meiner sechsjährigen Nichte zuhöre, wie sie sich die Sprache erobert und dabei, die verblüffendsten Entdeckungen und Erfindungen macht, verliebe ich mich dauernd neu, in meine Nichte und in die deutsche Sprache. "Dann liefte sie." oder "leuft" sie?

Deutsch auch natürlich, aber das folgende Gedicht habe ich gerade gefunden und jeder von uns hat ja schon mal mit den Mysterien der englischen Aussprache gekämpft, oder? The Beatles did not wear beards.

Dazu noch eine Buchempfehlung:

http://sites.google.com/site/theunfoldingoflanguage/

http://sites.google.com/site/theunfoldingoflanguage/home/Du-Jane 

Guy Deutscher geht von der üblichen Prämisse aus, das unsere Sprache verkommt, an Vielfalt verliert und sicher irgendwann nur noch aus globalen Lauten bestehen wird und dann, macht er sich daran, das Gegenteil zu beweisen! Für Sprachliebhaber ohne philologische Spezialkenntnisse, geschrieben wie ein Krimi. 

Und nun das Gedicht: 

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Und als kleine Nachspeise:

MERKUR: Bist du Sosias noch?

SOSIAS:                                      Ach laß mich gehn.
                   Dein Stock kann machen, daß ich nicht mehr bin;
                   Doch nicht, daß ich nicht I c h bin, weil ich bin.
                   Der einzge Unterschied ist, daß ich mich
                   Sosias jetzo der geschlagne, fühle.