13 replies to this topic

[Lawrence86]

I know that in Ancient times, there is no term called Dyslexics. But is it possible for someone to have dyslexia in Asian languages like Chinese, Arabic.etc

I know that Bahasa Malaysia & Bahasa Indonesia using English alphabets might be susceptible to dyslexia.

[SkllZ]

I know that in Ancient times, there is no term called Dyslexics. But is it possible for someone to have dyslexia in Asian languages like Chinese, Arabic.etc

I know that Bahasa Malaysia & Bahasa Indonesia using English alphabets might be susceptible to dyslexia.

I don't think in ancient time there's such thing as Dyslexics. Only recently, many people can't write well (in Chinese) as the use of technology (typing is different from writing).
I have no problems writing and reading both Vietnamese characters as well as Chinese ping yin if you try to compare in modern time.

[qrasy]

Why shouldn't there be dyslexics in the ancient times?
I guess it's simply that not many people got educated anyway.

Arabic is alphabetic, therefore once education is required there could easily be dyslexics.

For Chinese, misreading one character as another is not uncommon. 損 and 捐 look quite similar, for example.
Letter reversal sometimes occur, too, like 够<->夠. But I guess it doesn't severely affect the reading skills.

[Yeleixingfeng]

I have read something about Chinese characters being immune to dyslexia, in that it exercises both the brains thus those impaired single-brain can still rely on the other brain to interpret. Er, I don't have sources in English. Try googling 郭可教教授 or 安子介 or 宾夕法尼亚大学 1970.

It is about an experiment conducted on dyslexia infected American children. They were taught to recognise Chinese characters, but read English. For example, reading '母' mother, '她' she, '是' is. It turns out they read perfectly fine in that language. Experts explained that this is because Chinese(race) recognises characters as individuals instead of components. (You don't dissect 蘇 as 艹魚禾, it is recognised as a whole.) And this exercises the right brain, the brain that accepts things as it is, the artistic brain. Unlike our counterparts, we don't use logic to understand why it is spelt such. We accept it as it is and memorise the shape of it using our own creative, unique ways. And, once this character-recognising method is planted, it never fades. (So, I guess all of us who reads Chinese characters are out of this category.) In other words, it becomes a habit for Chinese to remember the shape of a word, no matter what language. (For example, during my younger age I actually pictured 'poor' as a beggar lying on the floor, with his hands out begging for money - the r.)

I cannot say for the majority of the world - those borne in an alphabetical-language-speaking regions, because I am not. This is not my theory, it has been proved years ago.

[qrasy]

That reminds me of this:
http://www.ecenglish...ns/can-you-read

I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.

An experienced reader in English actually do "recognize as a whole" familiar words.

Edited by qrasy, 05 December 2010 - 11:27 PM.

[Yeleixingfeng]

They are not trained to recognise as a whole. Chinese-readers are, and with dyslexia we probably refer to new-learners of a language. Besides, they even have some theory about Chinese(race) having more equally balanced left-right brain development, thus needless for right brain training.

[Jaak]

It is about an experiment conducted on dyslexia infected American children. They were taught to recognise Chinese characters, but read English. For example, reading '母' mother, '她' she, '是' is. It turns out they read perfectly fine in that language. Experts explained that this is because Chinese(race) recognises characters as individuals instead of components. (You don't dissect 蘇 as 艹魚禾, it is recognised as a whole.) And this exercises the right brain, the brain that accepts things as it is, the artistic brain. Unlike our counterparts, we don't use logic to understand why it is spelt such. We accept it as it is and memorise the shape of it using our own creative, unique ways. And, once this character-recognising method is planted, it never fades. (So, I guess all of us who reads Chinese characters are out of this category.) In other words, it becomes a habit for Chinese to remember the shape of a word, no matter what language.

Compare Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese.

These people commonly wrote texts in Chinese and then read these in their native language - since the Chinese hieroglyphs mostly signify meaning, they could read the meaning translating it into their own tongue. It was problematic, though: different grammatical structure and word order make reading Chinese hieroglyphs different. Also the clues to pronunciation which Chinese hieroglyphs have to some extent do not apply.

I have no doubt that English and other world languages could be written down in Chinese hieroglyphs like Japanese and other East Asian languages have been - with some misfits.

[qrasy]

They are not trained to recognise as a whole.

Regardless of matter how the introductions/lessons were usually made, apparently successful ones will still "tell" themselves to recognize as a whole.
Who knows, maybe some people failed to "tell" themselves to "recognize as a whole" simply because they feel compelled to recognize letter by letter?

dyslexia we probably refer to new-learners of a language

When encountered with unfamiliar characters Chinese can either guess from phonetic (and might be clueless about the exact meaning), or simply have to wait till they get the correct information from somewhere else.

But for alphabetic writings, they could just use the rules to pronounce the word out, so while a "training to recognize as a whole since the beginning" is possible, it doesn't fit this purpose.

Edited by qrasy, 06 December 2010 - 10:24 AM.

[Yeleixingfeng]

Regardless of matter how the introductions/lessons were usually made, apparently successful ones will still "tell" themselves to recognize as a whole.
Who knows, maybe some people failed to "tell" themselves to "recognize as a whole" simply because they feel compelled to recognize letter by letter?

When encountered with unfamiliar characters Chinese can either guess from phonetic (and might be clueless about the exact meaning), or simply have to wait till they get the correct information from somewhere else.

As I said, you do not fall into the 2nd category, how do you know?

Look at the Japanese, the only other language who uses kanji regularly. They start off by teaching hiragana, katakana - kindergarten children are taught to recognise: きょうはどようびだ。instead of 今日は土曜日だ。. How are they to think as a whole when the language itself is dissected such?
For Malay, we were taught to read sukubahasa (c,a ca;w,a,n wan; cawan) in school.

But for alphabetic writings, they could just use the rules to pronounce the word out, so while a "training to recognize as a whole since the beginning" is possible, it doesn't fit this purpose.

I understand that. But the problem with dyslexia is that their function of their left brain is impaired such that analytical thinking is impossible. How can the typical school-teaching system work for them if they cannot get the pronunciation simply by looking at the character? That is exactly why they fail to read, and that is exactly how Hanzi succeeded.

[qrasy]

As I said, you do not fall into the 2nd category, how do you know?

The quote above (one that starts with "I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg") was not created by me (or by anyone who posted in this thread); it is supposedly according to Cambridge University research.

Look at the Japanese, the only other language who uses kanji regularly. They start off by teaching hiragana, katakana - kindergarten children are taught to recognise: きょうはどようびだ。

This one is different from the "Latin-like" alphabetic scripts as there's no spacing here.
Repeating the quote again "the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae".
It's important to at least identify the first and last letter of each word. And ("linear" script) without spacing it's harder to see where the things begin and where things end, and it gets obscured if the orders are scrambled.

As a side note, Hangul has no space but start and end of syllables are easy to tell due to their positioning (the syllabic blocks made them "non-linear").

But the problem with dyslexia is that their function of their left brain is impaired such that analytical thinking is impossible. How can the typical school-teaching system work for them if they cannot get the pronunciation simply by looking at the character?

"Training to recognize as a whole since the beginning" obviously didn't refer to usual systems at all.
Repeating previous post, it (referring to "reading as a whole and not use analysis" etc) doesn't fit the purpose of alphabetic writing. So standard systems won't teach them to read in such a way.

And while no school teaches them to do so, nobody prevents them from learning to recognize as a whole either.

Edited by qrasy, 07 December 2010 - 12:20 AM.

[baibushe]

Look at the Japanese, the only other language who uses kanji regularly. They start off by teaching hiragana, katakana - kindergarten children are taught to recognise: きょうはどようびだ。instead of 今日は土曜日だ。. How are they to think as a whole when the language itself is dissected such?
For Malay, we were taught to read sukubahasa (c,a ca;w,a,n wan; cawan) in school.

Though I have not been diagnosed with dyslexia, I have an occasional problem with reading words in the wrong order and mixing up the letters in a word. When I started learning Japanese, I learned kana in the first two weeks with kanji being introduced in the third week. I already knew some characters from Chinese, so learning kanji was easier for me. Now that my fluency has increased, it has become difficult for me to read sentences written purely in hiragana. Words written in katakana are even more difficult. Kanji help me see the breaks between words and I can immediately see the words in a sentence. For me, 今日 becomes one unit which I recognize as being read kyou. I don't read the individual kanji separate from each other. Similarly, I read 面白い as omoshiroi and interpret it as 'interesting'. I don't read it as 面 + 白 + い. Rather, it is like an English word and I recognize it as one unit.

[Yeleixingfeng]

Dxlsiyea is a barod trem dfnneiig a lrnneaig dsbtilsiiy taht iramips a psoren’s aitibly to raed, and wichh can msnaeift isletf as a dtfucilify wtih poooiahnlgcl aseranews, pglnhaiocool dcdneoig, opoairtghihc cndiog, adtruioy sorht-trem mmreoy, and/or rpiad nmnaig. Dxyesila is a stpraaee and dtncsiit form rienadg dtfuceilifis rnuisltg form oehtr cueass, scuh as a non-nooiauerlgcl dccfeiniey with vsooin or hnraeig, or from poor or iaeuandqte rnaedig ittuncsron. It is blieevd that dxlsiyea can acfeft bweeten 5to 10 pnceret of a geivn ppltuoaoin aghlotuh trehe has been no sdeitus to idnatcite an arcatuce pgtrceenae.

Read this and see for yourself. It is a dyslexia article from wiki.

[qrasy]

Dxlsiyea is a barod trem dfnneiig a lrnneaig dsbtilsiiy taht iramips a psoren’s aitibly to raed, and wichh can msnaeift isletf as a dtfucilify wtih poooiahnlgcl aseranews, pglnhaiocool dcdneoig, opoairtghihc cndiog, adtruioy sorht-trem mmreoy, and/or rpiad nmnaig. Dxyesila is a stpraaee and dtncsiit form rienadg dtfuceilifis rnuisltg form oehtr cueass, scuh as a non-nooiauerlgcl dccfeiniey with vsooin or hnraeig, or from poor or iaeuandqte rnaedig ittuncsron. It is blieevd that dxlsiyea can acfeft bweeten 5to 10 pnceret of a geivn ppltuoaoin aghlotuh trehe has been no sdeitus to idnatcite an arcatuce pgtrceenae.

Most of the words are easily readable to me, even though a few like "nooiauerlgcl" and "aseranews" a bit difficult but still decipherable (as there are enough context), and I coulnd't see what "opoairtghihc" mean (anything longer than 9 letters has too many possibilities of reordering).
"pglnhaiocool" is easy for me simply because I am familiar with this term at the first place, it might be quite difficult for most English readers, though.
I can even see that "rnuisltg" missed an "e" and "ittuncsron" missed an "i".

[p.s. I also found that I see the ending "-ss" as a unit and if they are separated it's hard.]

A lot of English words have 3-6 or 7 letters so context is usually enough. When the words are all long, scrambling can be quite unreadable. In the case quoted below there are no word less than 7 letters [missed letters added back randomly] ( http://scienceavenge...y-its-fake.html ):

Bblaaesl pryleas pnmrrioefg slrliaimy aeoulltsby dvrseee clbrpmaaoe tteenmrat.

In the above I could only read 2 words.
Another problem is that addition of -s allows the last letter of the "real root" not in its correct place. That shows that I read the grammatical -s as "an addition to a word".

Apparently it's really not Cambridge, i.e. it was a wrong attribution.
http://www.foxnews.c...,511177,00.html

The moral of the story (at least where Cmabrdige is concerned), is that untruths printed are very hard to suppress

(- I think this also extends to rumors that are unprinted)

Regardless of that, University of Durham did conduct such an experiment, and found small but noticeable decrease in reading speed.

---

The examples like 'slate' and 'stale' also means that sometimes ordering is quite important in distinguishing words. But "word-distinguishing" small shape change are also found in Chinese, e.g. 捐<=>損, 氐<=>氏, 跌<=>趺 are apparently "tolerable" for Chinese reader if context is known.
One "common mis-recognition" (to those that surely know the 2 characters) that I found in Chinese is 祟 <=> 崇. But there are only 2 possibilities so context is enough.
"祟拜" and "鬼崇" are mis-spelled but readable.

Edited by qrasy, 07 December 2010 - 05:24 PM.

[qrasy]

Apparetly what I read some time ago was not the one with "Cmabrdige".
It's rather this:

Accondrig to raercesh w’ree pprniaarsahg hree, it deso’nt mteatr in waht oerdr the ltteers in a word apaper. The msot iapontmrt thnig for cnemoperhosin is that the first and last lrtetes are in the rihgt pacle. The rset can be celpoltemy out of oredr and ntiave skeepras can sltil read it whtiuot any soierus diulfficty.

http://sedition.com/...le-meaning.html
As the owner of the page confused "Saruman" and "Sauron", it hints that it's not the analytical part of the brain anyway.