Quote:
Originally Posted by evolusean
On a related note, you can conjugate adjectives in these languages! This adds a whole new dimension to the ideas you can express. To convey a similar meaning in English, we have to insert an entire COMP ("which/that/what") clause. ("The hand which was cold")
Japanese and Korean also use case particles, which denote a word's function in a sentence. English uses case, but in a nearly invisible way. Native speakers usually don't even realize this about their own language. For example, a lyric in a Japanese song might be:
夢を
yume-wo
In English, the only possible way to express this lyric would be to say "dream" (which, to an English speaker, appears to be in the basic nominative case). But a Japanese speakers would know that the lyricist meant for "dream" to be followed by some kind of transitive verb. This gives more insight into the singer's train of thought.
Additionally, Japanese and Korean have many, many levels of speech with regard to social status. In lyrics, it can be easily denoted the speaker's attitude toward and social relativity in relation to their subject. In English, we only have one level of speech. In formal situations, we rely on our tone of voice, proper grammar, and making polite requests with "please" and "thank you".
Japanese also has gendered speech, which can denote the singer's personal gender role. Meanwhile, neither Japanese nor Korean require the use of pronouns or personal verb conjugations; a person can sing an entire song without using the word "I" or a 1st person verb form. This means that the subject of the sentence can be entirely vague and open to interpretation. One person might think a song is meant to be sung about to a 2nd person, another about a 3rd person, and another might think it is in the 1st person. In English (and all European languages I am familiar with), one has no choice but to reveal the subject of their sentence by either pronoun or verb conjugation.
What gendered pronouns DO exist in Japanese and Korean are rarely used, at any rate. It more common to refer to a 3rd person as "that person", rather than "him" or "her". In this case, you can leave the gender of your subject entirely open to interpretation. In English, it would never do to replace all of your pronouns in that way.
Another big thing, perhaps the most important (and most visible), is the lack of articles and number in Japanese and Korean. There is no general concept of "the" or "a/an", nor of number as seen by common pluralization (although number can be forced by certain suffixes, it is more natural not to use them in most cases). This is really huge. English demands that you explain a noun's exact relation to everything.
Basically, what I mean to say is that Asian languages such as Japanese and Korean better facilitate the expression of abstract notions and emotions by being structurally and conceptually vague. You are not forced to give information which, in other languages, you have no choice but to divulge. You leave your art much more open to interpretation, but are still given the choice to be specific. In my mind, this opens the possibilities of lyrics vastly.
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When you say "structurally vague", it seems like you want to associate this with the general flow of the music; which is fine...I agree with some of your points; coming from a Vietnamese background in which the language also has gender terms and different forms of address for different levels of respect, I do appreciate the wide variety of emotions that can be conveyed with that kind of language. However, some music is best off more direct and in your face; while interpretation is necessary for a certain range of emotions that one may want to convey in a song, at times the feel of the song is best off portrayed...well...bluntly. I'm going to agree with you that the lack of "the", "an", etc is advantageous to the flow of the melody though; leaving out those syllables here and there can prevent the obstruction of one's message by superfluous words.
That's not to say that you can't necessarily conjugate adjectives in English either...the example you have there (the hand which was cold) is using the passive voice; in writing it is always preferred that one uses the active voice--in which case, it would be much simpler: the cold hand. For example, it is much more to the point if one says, "Joe hit him" other than "He was hit by Joe". I've been studying Japanese and while some forms of noun modification are unique to the language, others can also be replicated with English. I'm going to cite Gackt's song, Kono Daremo Inai Heya De, here. He describes the room before using the word "room" itself; translations I've seen of this title are "In this room with no one in it" when it can be more simply translated as"In this empty room". I get the poignant use of "people" in there---he wants to say that the room is not only empty; it's devoid of PEOPLE. In such a sense, Japanese may indeed be more useful as it can more easily evoke a stronger image without seeming wordy, like the initial translation is. However, ultimately it comes down to the ingenuity of the translator/writer himself and the diction and structure he chooses when writing or translating.
I agree with a lot of your points but on the other hand I don't think music has to be vague in order to be expressive. Kelly Clarkson's "Since You've Been Gone" is about as forceful and straightforward as they come and it still leaves you with a sense of identification with the lyricist; she's glad her ex is out of her life. While each language has its own advantage, it's a stretch to say that any is by default more useful or expressive than the other; it all comes down to who is writing the song and how he or she plans to use the vocabulary available to him/her. Take into account the type of the composition and how that aids the words flow more smoothly, and you've got an even wider range of quality to fall into.