Heh, someone's still bitter about flunking out of grad school, I see.

Chembovy'a/glad to know, Takuan. :D

Upeicharõ ahata paraguaype ajogua opaveve. Ikatupa ajogua riñon? :D

This is like, the hottest thing ever. Jesus christ.

Wasn't this on Sesame Street once? Or was that a different painting elephant?

Isn't investing in gold jumping the gun a bit?

Hah! Actually, this reminds me of this sci fi book I read when I was in possibly 4th grade; My teacher is an alien. I remember something about some sort of sub-vocal system.

Sounds also like an effect of alcohol. I find that I become more proficient in a language I'm learning after a beer or two. ;)

I'm hesitant to agree, at least in the extreme situations I can think of where a language has fewer color words than English. We all still see the full range of colors, but we are limited in our ability to describe this range of colors by the terms we can use. Think of all the web developers and color nerds out there who can see the difference between the minutia contained in a #RGB hex code. Do people suddenly see more colors when they are given the ability to describe them?

On the flip side, some languages only have three color words, which typically end up being black, white and red; on the other hand, I'm sure people can tell the difference between the color of the sky and the color of grass (assuming that the local grass is green, and not sky blue). Maybe I misunderstand how color words work in languages, but that's one situation that this theory would have to take into account, right?

I love it.

What a way to not roll over for security insanity.

Hoooly crap, bad idea. :P

A friend of mine once told me that he was forced to watch this in school for some learning purpose.

There's also the lovely Armi and Dani of Finnish fame. This music video's one of my favourites-- it's just so... Something.

(P.s. fi.: tanssi 'dance')

The commentary so far seems quite lacking of any anthropological insight though. Maybe we should be considering the cultural facets of human-gorilla communication, especially now that such communication is possible if at least with one gorilla in particular. Maybe I hold language to be such an important thing since I am a linguist, but I think it's interesting that more inter-species communication.

I'm kind of amused (or maybe this is the wrong word?) to read about discussion of sexual harassment when involving cross-cultural contacts. How would the request be taken from a culture of humans in which women don't cover their breasts? Would such women asking to see your breasts be the same thing, or is it inherently a request that you become more like them?

I'm not trying to pull some sort of "lab mice have feelings"-type PETA argument here, but I just feel like more needs to be said on the topic of interspecies interaction. The researchers there really aren't just observing gorillas to see what they're capable. Under the surface, they're all taking part in an experiment of interspecies behavior and communication, so maybe they should get more experimental. Would Koko really kekeke about being shown some boobies, or would something else come of it?

Actually, #1, it's octopuses; this is English after all. It's also more widely accepted according to an informal corpus search with Google. ;)

That first ‘crash’ is just epic.

What, is everyone here afraid of showing a little leg? Just roll yer pants up.

The word "interdict" always makes me happy.

#4: I'd just chalk it up as free variation. At least, I can't tell which is better. By analogy though, maybe elving? Look at 'life' and 'living'. I feel though like 'elving' could be doing things that elves do, while 'elfing' could be 'the state of being an elf'.

I would say that there's just a latent element in the human psyche that enjoys dressing up and separating itself from reality.

Yeah, it's what inspires me to act.

If anyone wants to hear some of the band, samples can be heard here. Click on Gramofoni for a pop-up music player applet.

And here's an example of English that's okay, but still something that really wouldn't fly in the States:

http://flickr.com/photos/alcarilinque/131493920/

Found in Helsinki.

http://flickr.com/search/?q=pink%20katydid&w=all

It looks like Pink Katydids also exist in adult form, and some of them can be quite vividly pink.