My ex sent me this link:
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/index.jsp

He also tells me Radio Finland broadcasts the news in Latin on some kind of regular schedule.

Radio Finland:
http://www.yle.fi/rfinland/index.shtml

Yes, I like the Visual Thesaurus, enough to give it a different colour on my own page of links (although that may have more to do with the fact that it is one of only a handful of links I found, the rest being from Dr. Bill's impressive collection)
http://maxqnz.com/References.html

sjm: [KISS] You are lovely, you know that?

Ah! I was just thinking about that visual thesaurus this past weekend! I'd earmarked it on one of my former destroyed laptops--and was thinking about asking for the link here on AWAD. This is a happy coincidence, birdseed, to see you've posted this--and, sjm, I hadn't realized you'd added it to your page!

Radio Finland broadcasts the news in Latin on some kind of regular schedule.

...which is pretty funny, given that Finnish, as we all are sick and tired of hearing, is *not Indo-European (wanna present *your/our version of the Great Vowel Movement, b'feed? tsuwm thinks *he made it up )

"wanna present *your/our version of the Great Vowel Movement, b'feed? tsuwm thinks *he made it up"

Just try an' stop me, you and what army of linguists?

This theory is based on research conducted during my first venture outside of North America in 1975. On the way to and from the Soviet Union, I spent about two days each in Hungary and Finland, being equally bewildered by anything in print in both places. Of course, there was the odd loan word, like "Rice Krispies" that helped me out, but I was in verbal distress until the explanation came to me in a vision. Or maybe it was just something I ate. Anyway, suddenly I could see a great cultural schism occurring in a nameless central European tribe back at the dawn of time. Owing to their irreconcilable differences, about which we can only speculate, one bunch headed north with all of the vowels, eventually settling in Finland. Having crossed the finish line, you know.

The other lot stubbornly stayed in place in central Europe, with a death-like grip on all the consonants, obsessively holding on to them without regard to any comforts or necessities, until they got pretty hungry.

Centuries later, no animosity remains, but recent studies by the eminent German etymologist, Reiner Zufall, suggest that transposing Finnish text over Hungarian will actually produce something intelligible to speakers of Indo-European languages.

Ms Strophic and I, traveling in Europe the following summer, endeavored to prove this last point by sending home postcards from Hungary containing only consonants. We succeeded in trying the patience of our loved ones, but accomplished little else.

Our joint research is written up in many formerly reputable journals, and may be found by consulting the index under "Feces Equi".

Well, you asked.

, birdfeed! That was a good one! So what ever happened to that hapless German scholar:
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=announcements&Number=100202? (Danged Europeans, managing to divide up the vowels and consonants AND lose all the verbs--it's a wonder we can speak at all!)

I can't speak with authority about the guy with all the verbs, but Reiner Zufall died a tragic death when the entire set of the OED fell out of a window and flattened him. Many people suspect another scholar who had wanted to publish on the same topic was the culprit, but I think it was pure coincidence...

Thanks for that bit of entertainment, birdfeed. What a refreshing story to read today after too many others of troubles.

This past summer I took a brief look at the Macedonian alphabet, which is completely phonetic and very easy to read once you understand how to break the code. One problem when first looking at it is some letters that look like consonants are actually vowels--and vice versa. But, again, once you learn the specific sound for each letter, Macedonian is a piece of cake to read, even if you don't understand a thing you're saying.

Even in English I don't understand what I'm saying sometimes.

Even in English I don't understand what I'm saying sometimes. Zed, we have got to be related!

Reiner Zufall died a tragic death when the entire set of the OED fell out of a window and flattened him. Then his friend happened along and, failing to appreciate the gravity of the situation, asked, "What happened, Reiner? Zu fall?"

I realize this may not be a piece of Macedonian cake to answer, but I'm curious -- do we know the origin of the Finnish language? Is it related to Gaelic?

Ummmm, would you say that Reiner Zufall was at a loss for words?