[PLUG-TALK] Huh? Did he really say that?

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Thu Sep 22 05:39:25 UTC 2016


On Wed, Sep 21, 2016 at 10:48:23AM -0700, Rich Shepard wrote:
>   For John and others interested in language there's this article from The
> Economist this week <http://tinyurl.com/jnyesf7>.
> 
>   It turns out that the sounds used for many words are similar in many
> different languages, including the ubiquitous 'huh,' and are not arbitrary.
> It's an interesting read.

The article says that short words are the same in many
languages because of parsimony.  OTOH, my favorite long
word, antidisestablishmentarianism, translates into
antidisestablishmentarianism in 96 out of 103 languages
by google translate, that always-perfect font of wisdom.

The exceptions are Bulgarian, Chinese, French (of course),
Japanese, Telegu, Turkish, and my favorite exception,
Hebrew ( יא יטנא ). 

Perhaps someone (with a capable  can pronounce that for me.
I can't even guess how many syllables that is.

Ketih


-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com



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