Dear Patrick and Alix, Smilies?  

I do not want to....
...interrupt a nice discussion on hoe to put emotional content in any language, but I would like to object against heath's characterisation of Afrikaans. We all dislike the fact that it added "Apartheid" to the international language, but it is as all languages a beautiful language for those who speak it. I am not fluent in Afrikaans but I can read it without any problems and I have read several books in Afrikaans. I discovered how close it was to my own mother tongue when a remote cousin who grew up in South Africa came to visit us. By changing "de" (the) into "die" and by adding "nie" at the end of every second sentence we understood each other very well. Nobody would take me for a "'n ware Afrikaander" but to say that I do not like the language would be to "vertel 'n leuen".
....and thank you Alix and Patrick for encouraging us to express emotions in words!

apologies if it seemed rude...
apologies if it seemed rude Koen, but the diseased throat descritpion actually came from my mother and aunt, native speakers both. I've heard it spoken by many people for years and can't imagine anyone would find it easy on the ear, I speak no Welsh but in the abstract it simply sounds lovely and I can't understand a word of it.