Comments on: More Than Meets the Ear: Genes & Tonal Languages

By: On Interacting with the Environment

On Interacting with the Environment — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 07:34:22 +0000

[...] certainly yes!—- as I try to show in the wordless conversations here, in the musical interchanges that pass between Charlie and me. We can teach Charlie the phrases and gestures that are often [...]

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Wed, 30 May 2007 20:57:57 +0000

One of my aunts has been trying to write down as much as she about Ngin Ngin—when she was in her 80s she and her friends were at the mah jong table all night.

By: Ms Clark

Ms Clark — Wed, 30 May 2007 20:49:54 +0000

Hen3 you3 yi4 si.

(”Very interesting”, for you non-tonally blessed types.)

By: Kathy

Kathy — Wed, 30 May 2007 04:59:43 +0000

How wonderful Kristina!

Dear old Ngin Ngin is 102, and still very able, mentally and physically.She must have many a story to tell!

Ma jong eh?

God Bless her!

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:31:53 +0000

Great links, “ultimate thanks”! My grandfather (my mother’s father) was in excellent shape into his 90s. Ngin-Ngin still walks some blocks in Oakland Chinatown to the gong saw—the club where she plays mah jong, and where most everyone is from the generation after her.

By: Justthisguy

Justthisguy — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:29:17 +0000

Sorry again. My ancient system, or something, truncates everything I send, it seems.

That’s http://www.olimu.com

I’ll write somentayaha doodah.

There, I got past the truncator monst

By: Justthisguy

Justthisguy — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:24:26 +0000

Having written twice, I might as well thrice.

Ma’am, have you looked at John Derbyshire’s Web site?

He’s a rather geeky Englishman who married a Chinese woman when he was living in China. They now live on Long Island, not far from you, with their kids.

The Derb is geeky enough to have written a book called “Prime Obsession”, about the Riemann Zeta function and prime numbers. He is the token weirdo at “National Review.”

If you delve deeply into his website, you’ll read his account of going to China to re-connect with the wife’s family.

While there he got to meet “Ultimate Grandpa” (Derb’s translation from the Chinese) who, though 90-something years old, easily bested the badly-toothed skinny English geek in an arm-wrestling contest.

I believe his writings can be found at

http://www.olimu.co

By: Justthisguy

Justthisguy — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:04:12 +0000

Whoops, sorry about that, Chief!

The above URL works better without the trailing comma.

Try http://www.thedonovan.com

By: Justthisguy

Justthisguy — Wed, 30 May 2007 02:47:59 +0000

I am minded of some things old Major Unger said about the Language School in Monterey, and going to Viet-Nam. They had some older guys there trying to learn Chinese who just couldn’t do it. There were some actual suicides. He was learning Vietnamese, with fewer tones, thus easier. He found his French more useful once he got there as an advisor, back in ‘62. Apparently his counterpart liked the same French poets he did.

The Armorer, at http://www.thedonovan.com, has mentioned an autistic neighbor, a little girl who is most easily communed with by singing to her.

Song is Good.