Musings on how the muscles used to enunciate a language might affect the mood of the culture that speaks it. I find this stuff fascinating.
(For what it’s worth, I lean toward the “classical conditioning” hypothesis, though the “intrinsic properties” idea could also have merit.)
Interesting. Everything sounds “funny” in Yiddish, and the happiest Jews I’ve met are the Yiddish-speaking ones, though that could be the culture too, which is what I previously thought, I guess that’s one of those “chicken and the egg” questions. It’s also a language well-known for humor (like the Yiddish author Shalom Aleichem) and funny sayings, which sound funny even in English but in Yiddish are even funnier. Food for thought.
And a very filling meal it is.