Thought this was interesting...

[Legolam]

Sorry it's nothing to do with Tolkien, but I thought this was really fascinating. Languages intrigue me.

"Adiccorng to an Esnilgh uvesrinity rsceaerh it deos not metaetr in wcihh sqeencue the ltetres in a wrod are wttrien. The olny tnihg taht is iropatmnt is taht the frist and the lsat wrod are in the rhigt pclae. The rset of the ltetres can be pclaed at raodnm and it wlil slitl be psolsbie to raed nallromlly waht it syas. The rasoen for tihs is taht we are not radenig ervey ltteer but the wrod as a wlohe."

[Niniel]

I read that too, but I can't read that as fast as normal words. I think when you read you read one whord, and you immediately understand it because the word looks a certain way. So if you mix all the letters you can't read as fast as normal.

[DGoeij]

Funny, although I was able to read it, it nearly hurt, because of the amount of effort was much greater.

Maybe it doesn't matter how you write a word, but I do think this kind of spelling will not increase book sales.:)

[Aulë]

Yeah, a TV show over here showed that; followed by:

'Who gveis a siht?'

:p

[Snaga]

I guess the French Connection UK think that's pretty cool too with their FCUK logo.:rolleyes:

At first I thought I had to slow down to read it but the moment I just 'went for it' I realised I could read it by instinct almost, and it was possible to read it at what seemed like normal speed. Fascinating!:)

[Ice Man]

Awesome, I should put that in my signature. :D

[Nimawae's hope]

Wow! That was pretty cool. It had never occured to me that you could spell things so wrong and still be able to read them. I'm pretty picky about proper spelling, but I guess my reasons it have been thrown out the window.:rolleyes:

Hey, Legolam. You said you like languages: what ones do you like? I love to study them......but I'm really bad at speaking them. Philology type subjects are just fascinating.:)

[Legolam]

It's not so much that I like languages, it's that they tend to like me! As a kid, I spent a lot of time travelling with my parents, especially in France, so I have a knack of picking up languages really quickly. I once went to Wales for a week and ended up knowing some basic words in Welsh! I got pretty fluent over the summer at some basic Spanish too. And I'm trying to get Shaun to teach me Farsi (Persian).

I find it really easy to listen to or read other languages, but less easy to speak them, unfortunately. And the geek in me loves working out where words stem from ... :rolleyes:

[Eledhwen]

Originally posted by Legolam
Sorry it's nothing to do with Tolkien, but I thought this was really fascinating. Languages intrigue me.

"Adiccorng to an Esnilgh uvesrinity rsceaerh it deos not metaetr in wcihh sqeencue the ltetres in a wrod are wttrien. The olny tnihg taht is iropatmnt is taht the frist and the lsat wrod are in the rhigt pclae. The rset of the ltetres can be pclaed at raodnm and it wlil slitl be psolsbie to raed nallromlly waht it syas. The rasoen for tihs is taht we are not radenig ervey ltteer but the wrod as a wlohe." I sent this a few weeks ago to a friend who is somewhat dyslexic, and she had no more trouble reading it than normal text.

[Legolam]

No way! That's really interesting. I wonder why that is...

[Nimawae's hope]

Originally posted by Legolam
No way! That's really interesting. I wonder why that is...

Probably, it has something to do with the fact that to dyslexics the words are jumbled anyway, so letters being backward does not necessarily mess up their view of how it should be. I don't really know. I should ask my brother.

I love studying the roots of languages, how they are formed, and how they relate to one another. Exactly how much Welsh did you pick up when you were in Wales? I've always heard that it's a pretty hard language. I wish I knew a lot more languages than I do. I have to work pretty hard at them, so you're pretty lucky that it comes so easily to you. I'm studying Latin now, and it's incredible how much easier it is to understand other languages, whether Romantic or Germanic. So have you learned elvish yet, Legolam? ;)

[Legolam]

Umm, I learnt Welsh off road signs, so I used to be able to say:

Hospital
Stop
Give way
Road works
English not welcome (only kidding ;) )

I'm holding off learning Elvish, because that would truly confirm my geekdom and I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. However, I know selected words, especially those that were in the movie, that just seem to have sunk in. I'd love to learn latin, as it would make learning Medicine just that teeny bit easier!

Anyone else a language geek apart from me and Nim?

[Wonko The Sane]

I'm a huge language geek! :)

They come really easily too me.

(You forgot one Welsh word that you probably learned while in Wales though, Legolam: Araf!! It's painted on all the roads when they want you to drive slowly. :)

I had no trouble reading that original post at normal speed.
In fact when I first glanced at it I thought it WAS written normally and started to read it...it was only after I stopped to process that I realised it was jumbled up...but I shrugged and said, "Oh well" and kept on reading.
No problems!

I have a penchant for languages, where they come from, etc. In my final year in High School we had to learn the prologue to the Canterbury Tales in Middle English.
I found later that this isn't as big a deal in English schools as it is in America...I found in talking to Snaga that he too can rattle off thier "Whan that Aprille with his showres soote..." but in this country it's something only a few, dedicated, well-read teachers teach their students, and something they usually only teach to their "advanced" classes. Perhaps because in this country so many students in so many high schools end up at state schools and studying business...in which knowing such things won't help them in their future endeavours.
This teacher had high hopes for his "Accelearted" Brit. Lit. students as we were called...it was his tradition to teach those classes...he felt it would help us if and when we went on to bigger and better things...in some ways he was right.
I went to one of the most prestigious Universities in the country for a while, and found that I could alternately impress and alternately incite jealousy in my fellow classmates when hanging out and messing around. I had one friend (Kristina) who when I'd go to her room to visit we'd sit up in her bunk bed, and sing songs from "My Fair Lady" and play with our fake English accents...that's how we stumbled onto the Middle-English thing...:) My friend Kristina LOVED to hear Middle English...my boyfriend at the time ,fancied himself some sort of genius, got angry whenever he discovered I knew something he didn't....most of the other people I ran into fit into either of those categories, or had a "don't know don't care attitude"...but I never met anyone else (other than the other than graduates of my high school who attended that University) who could recite it.
(This isn't to say that I went around showing off a lot...my friend Caitlin and I would do it for fun when I visited her in her dorm as we'd gone to High School together...and it was something we thought was funny. And Kristina would make me perform when we went out. She was truly eccentric and we had fun running amok on campus.)

Apparently we aren't as well educated in this country as in England... ;) Or maybe more here know things like that than I realise, and I hung out with the wrong people. :D


Anyway, it was in learning that bit of Chaucer in Middle-English, (and subsequently reading on my own time the rest of the Canterbury Tales in the original Middle-English, becuase I figured that after that final year in High School I'd probably never have the time again...and I was right) that I found just how much languages fascinated me. I was most keenly interested in our instructors lecture about the origins of Middle-English, and later modern English, and their respective connections (or lack of connections) with what we think of as "Old English"...

It's always been a personal goal to learn languages...ever since I read in an old copy of Ripley's Believe it or Not about a man who had learned an insane amount of them...

It had always been my intention to begin with German...my father and his parents and relatives all spoke it fluently...and didn't hide the fact.

But my mother pressed me to learn the language of the OTHER half of my culture (which her family DID hide knowing...strangely enough) and take Spanish in school, despite the fact that I'd already had many years of Spanish (and French for that matter) as a much younger child...So against my wishes I took intensive Spanish language lessons when I entered High School and later went to Uni...and now can speak it nearly fluently.
Unfortunately my passion for learning languages doesn't extend to speaking them...as I get mind-numbingly shy in the presence of a native speaker...and will only rarely exhibit that I know the language...and usually only when all other means of communication are rendered impossible by a lack of English on the part of my counterpart.
Or when the other person doesn't understand it...because then if my grammar isn't perfect they don't know. ;)
But actually, I'm not as shy a I used to be. I was forced to speak more Spanish than I was used to when I worked at a Sporting Good store because we often had customers who didn't speak English, and I was the only one in the store with Spanish-skills. Same at the restaurant I work in now...I was reluctant to speak it at first...because it had been so long since I'd last had lessons...but the one Spanish-speaking employee in that restaurant wasn't great at English...knew only enough to do his job and communicate with his co-workers...and I could tell he wanted somebody to talk to. So we chat regularly now...and it's amazing how FAST it all comes back!



Wow...I just re-read that entire post...and it sounds pompous...I don't mean to sound pompous...that's the last thing I want...this forum has too many who make a show of "pomp and circumstance" as it is...

I just wanted to show everyone what a huge dork I was. 8-) A big ol' language geek...though not as great as Tolkien. :) *8-) glasses face glasses face glasses face* GEEK GEEK GEEK! :)

That's me...I freely admit it. :D

[celebdraug]

HI Wonko The Sane (odd, but cool name :) )

Im kind of a language geek. I like a few languages, and some i dont really like!

I have learnt English (well dhh :rolleyes: ), French, Im learning German in school at the moment, i also know some hindi, as that is my background! im not good at speaking it but i understand it quite well.

~Draug~

[Legolam]

Originally posted by celebdraug
HI Wonko The Sane (odd, but cool name :) ) That's our Wonks - odd but cool ;)

We were once made to read a book called "Sunset Song" in our English class - it's written in a Scot's dialect and was completely unintelligible. I hated it with a passion. I much prefer languages that sound beautiful, like French or Spanish. I tried desperately to learn Spanish in Bolivia, but my phrasebook doesn't exactly help out with grammar and stuff, so I'm still pretty much in the dark!

Wonks - I know what you mean about being shy when you speak a foreign language. I've been going to France at least once a year for every year of my life and speak it pretty fluently (after a few days of getting acclimatised), but for years I wouldn't even order a baguette at the baker's because I was shy. I'm trying to get over it now, cos I need to translate when we go to visit my family across there. It's funny when we're all sitting round the dinner table with them, cos they don't speak a lot of English, and we don't speak a whole lot of French, so you get some very interesting conversations in lots of different languages at the same time! And adding red wine to that ...!!

[Wonko The Sane]

That's our Wonks - odd but cool

And naked! *stops to hear the silence of crickets chirping, and to stare embarrasedly into the shocked faces of her friends*...

I'm not really naked, guys...but I guess this shows I AM odd. ;)


To the topic: Legolam, I know JUST how you feel with that whole language barrier thing. :) My grandmothers sisters sometimes come up to visit and they'll try to speak Spanish to my grandmother, who tries to pretend to not speak it, so she'll only speak English, and I'll be trying to have a conversation with my aunts so they won't feel bad, but still trying to talk to my grandma so she doesn't get angry for me admitting I know Spanish.

So it's half in English half in Spanish...crazy and fun. :)

The place I work now though...sometimes I forget the words and the guy laughs at me...but he does say that I speak it very well, and I think the thing is, even if you mess up and they laugh, people whose first language is not English still appreciate it when you leave your own element and try to speak to them on their own terms.

I've heard French people are quite rude to American tourists, but if you make a serious effort to speak their language, they tend to be a bit more accomodating. :)

[legoman]

Exactly how much Welsh did you pick up when you were in Wales?

I can tell you now, I've been living in wales for about 3 months now, and I've spent some time working on a welsh TV program and the only word I'm actually confident that I know is 'dioch' meaning thanks. I'm quite disapointed really, I wanted to come home and annoy everyone by saying welsh things, but I don't know any! I'll have to try harder before summer comes.

but on the original note, I could read the statement fine - my parents showed me it a few months ago - mum loves stuff like that.
Though when I did read a version of it, I only noticed it was different when I got to the word english and they'd spelt it 'elgnsih' and I only spotted that because the 'l' as a second letter confused me.

[Wonko The Sane]

So if I say: also, almost, Ellis, Elizabeth, and Olay, are you confused?





Also, another Welsh word to help you: Araf.

It means Slow...

[Nimawae's hope]

I guess legoman is just a little confused by the letter L. It's an issue in his subconscious mind created long ago in his childhood. In other words he's got issues :D ......J/K!

Actually oddly enough, I can understand why the misplaced L in english confused him. It kind of looks like it should be the word 'elvish'.......at least that's what I think, but then maybe I'm crazy.

[Wonko The Sane]

You're RIGHT! It DOES look like Elvish.

But so does this: "Elshiv" :)

[Nimawae's hope]

Uh....Wonko......"elshiv" could look like a lot of things.......but we won't go there. *Looks around quickly for any mods* ;)

So have any of you actually learned elvish yet?