Found on proggit: Krug, a new experimental programming language, compiler written in D

[H. S. Teoh]

On Sat, Apr 28, 2018 at 04:47:54AM +0000, Meta via Digitalmars-d wrote:
[...]
> Unfortunately, I think the Chinese have us beat; they can construct
> redundant sentences far beyond anything we could ever imagine, and
> thus I predict that within 50 years Chinese will be the new
> international language of science, commerce, and politics:
> 
> Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī. Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
> Shí shí, shì
> shí shī shì shì. Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì. Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ
> shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì. Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì. Shíshì
> shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì. Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī. Shí
> shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī. Shì shì shì shì.
> 
> 石室诗士施氏，嗜狮，誓食十狮。氏时时适市视狮。十时，适十狮适市。
> 是时，适施氏适市。氏视是十狮，恃矢势，使是十狮逝世。氏拾是十狮尸，适石室。石室湿，氏使侍拭石室。石室拭，氏始试食是十狮尸。食时，始识是十狮，实十石狮尸。试释是事。

As a native Chinese speaker, I find contortions of this kind mildly
amusing but mostly ridiculous, because this is absolutely NOT how the
language works.  It is carrying an ancient scribal ivory-tower ideal of
one syllable per word to ludicrous extremes, an ideal that's mostly
unattained, because most so-called monosyllabic "words" in the language
are in fact multi-consonantal clusters retroactively analysed as
monosyllables. Isolated syllables taken out of their context have no
real meaning of their own (except perhaps in writing, which again is an
invention of the scribes that doesn't fully reflect the spoken reality
[*]). Actually pronouncing the atrocity above might as well be speaking
reverse-encrypted Klingon as far as comprehensibility by a native
speaker is concerned.

[*] The fact that the written ideal doesn't really line up with the
vernacular is evidenced by the commonplace exchange where native
speakers have to explain to each other which written word they mean
(especially where names are involved), and this is done by -- you
guessed it -- quoting the multiconsonantal cluster from which said
monosyllabic "word" was derived, thus reconstructing the context
required to actually make sense of what would otherwise be an ambiguous,
unintelligible monosyllable.  Foreigners, of course, have little idea
about this, and gullibly believe the fantasy that the language actually
works on monosyllables.  It does not.


T

-- 
Mediocrity has been pushed to extremes.