Sometimes we define everything in its very most simple terms, as defined in our native language, that being, of course English. But we forget that there are many dialects of English, just as there are many dialects of any other language, be it, French, Italian, Chinese, or maybe Arabic, which probably has as many dialects as there are people.
Ciao.
I am a little amused reading the answer to the Soup question here, "How many syllables are there in Arabic?" Their answer is simple, it is three, but if we really examine this question and its possibilities, we are basing the answer to this question, being 3 syllables, on our Bostonian English language way of reasoning and thinking. IN the South of the USA, no word has 3 syllables. They are either 1, 2, or any other number than 3. The besttop of the head example I can give on this is chittellings. They are food made of port intestines, some people think they can be made of any kind of gut. In the South, this is not true. No one can make Possum or Coon or Beef or Chicken Chittellings. As a mattof fact, no one in the South of the USA can even make chittellings. That is a 3 syllable word, and as I previously said,k 3 l ietter words do not even exist in the South. If anyone speaks a word in 3 syllables in Alabama or Georgia, or Looseeanne, they are obviously Yankees.
But get back to these Chittellings, in the South they are Chitlins. And many of my Arab friends, and I have plenty, will tell you that Arabic only has 2 syllables. That is how they talk, and no one can prove itunless you also write in hyroglyphic Arbic, which is their term for our Arabic.
I am also Apache blooded, sort of, but in reality, there are no Apaches and never have been, because Apache is not a race nor is it a tribe. It is a Nation within the nation of the USA. As is Cherokee, Sioux, several others, they are all nations, not tribes. Apache, to the rest of us, is a 3 letter word, but my bloodline is not Apache, it is the tribe of Geronimo, who was never a chief, he was a Medecine Man and like myself, he was not Apache, he was Bedenkohe, which is a tribe of the Apache Nation. And it has 4 syllables, not 3. Anything 3 syllable is proobably more over-educated more than anything else.
Ciao. Which brings me back to how I opened this blog. Ciao. It means goodbye in Italian, all dialects. But it also means Hello. Just ask any Italian.