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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>>... On Behalf Of BillK<br>Subject: Re: [ExI] chinese synthesis</p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>...<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>>...The BBC has an item saying that Germany has just deleted their longest word.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>>...German is famous - or notorious - for making compound words, often to describe something legal or scientific.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>They are known in Germany as "tapeworm" words.----BillK<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>_______________________________________________<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>Ja I see that as a flaw in the language, equivalent to some of the more severe flaws in English. It works against reading comprehension, since we read to some extent by measuring the length of a word and noting its first and last letters. Most of us here have seen that exercise where the first and last letters are correct, but the rest of the word is scrambled. Somehow you can still read the passage. In case you haven't seen it, here it is:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'>I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>I could read it with no trouble at all. The German tapeworm word characteristic would defeat this feature of English.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>I thought of teaching my son Chinese, but that has a characteristic which caused me to reconsider: the fact that it is tonal. As it was explained to me, a homophone can be pronounced in different ways. For instance, the upward inflection almost makes it sound like a question, so that the phrase lawng choi? means "more rice please," but the term lawng choi? means "DIE, filthy wretch!" and the term lawng choi? means "aardvarks are devouring the canoe." All three pronunciations sounded identical to me, a trained musician. So. No Chinese for my son.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>The flaw in Spanish is that the young senoritas love it, and they are too beautiful for any teenage boy to resist, so the high school years are devoured by copulation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>So I am back to square 1 in choosing a language, and once again questioning whether or not it is worth the time investment, when the time is otherwise profitably spent learning math and such.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText><span style='color:black'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>