A nice Finnish word to keep you going:
lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas
unfortunately it doesn't have any of our umlauts, like this charming word: töölöläinen

I even had a project / platform named 'Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher', together with a few friends, several years ago. :)

( It mainly was a 'Designers Playground'. Sadly enough, the site itself is no longer alive. I think we even had the domain eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher.com, for a year or so, back then. Aaargh, My memory. Its available again, by the way. :)

Dav

Why yes, that is Action Jackson!

Forza Italia!

If I remember correctly, there was a word in a Finnish – German dictionary that went something like this: phonecallselectioncancellationpreventionbutton. A word.

And if I’m not totally mistaken the long word posted by Mili is in fact in use in the military.

To clear things out, it was a German word. ; )

phonecallselectioncancellationpreventionbutton would be translated as Anrufauswahlabbruchsvermeidungsknopf. Or what about the old classic Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft? ;o)

Mili, is that the Finnish title for Tom Cruise's movie "Top Gun" ?

Or "pannomattosuora" which means something like "the crazy woollen cloth of the nun" in Italian.

Sorry, Goran, I forgot about the Swedish word combining systems! Any other languages like that? Danish and Norwegian surely, perhaps Dutch?

Alessandro, the "pannomattosuora" sounds like a Finnish word, although panno doesn't mean anything in Finnish (change it to "pannu", and it means kettle), but "matto" is a rug and "suora" is straight.

“to straighten the carpet”

That is a fine kettle of fish :-)

ChrisL

Only one s in the disestablish part of that word ... so the English winner by one letter is ...

floccinaucinihilipilification - setting little or no value on something

Any advance?

Toby

pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

Defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "a factitious word alleged to mean 'a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust' but occurring chiefly as an instance of a very long word."

Chimney sweeps unite in song :-)

ChrisL

Another very vowel-friendly language :-)

ChrisL

Tõõõõõõbik.

It's Estonian and means "Work-night nightingale".

I would like to see Tim's text above set justified with hyphenation turned off :-)

ChrisL

I think this one is the longest:
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz

And this one is long and also often used:
Betäubungsmittelverschreibungsverordnung

in english it would be called:
narcoticprescriptionlaw
or something like that!?!?

: )

I wonder: are German speakers (and those in other languages with a similar device) slowed down by the aggregation of nouns like this, with no word spacing?

You mean, they think slow?  ;-)

I don't think so. The long words you found are the exception rather than the rule. As to philosophical or scientific texts -- once you figure out what someone means by a longer word (which has more to do with the interpretation of the text than mere deciphering of a single word), these words become variables which you just recognize. Whether they are shorter or longer doesn't really matter then.
Today "lichtgeschwindigkeit" is used which is literally the same as the English and French terms. Not that long.

[Glaube ich nicht. Diese langen wörter sind eher die ausnahme. Und in texten, in denen sie auftauchen, muß man sie nicht ständig aufs neue entziffern, sondern erkennt sie einfach wieder -- bloß eine variable, deren länge sich nicht direkt auf deren wiedererkennbarkeit auswirkt.]

Just an example. Not many really long words ...

Karsten

>Not many really long words …

Yeah but you occassionally get something like wiedererkennbarkeit = recognizable :)

The reason I ask is because of a question I have not related to this thread: whether the original absence of word spacing slowed down readers of Latin and Greek. It seems that semitic languages always had word spaces, but that the addition of vowels to the alphabet for Greek and Latin sufficiently reduced ambiguity that word spaces were not as needed.

There is a theory, of Noordzij and Saenger that the re-introduction of word spaces by Irish monks in the 8th century enabled silent reading and was a big breakthough. I am wondering whether native speakers of Latin and Greek could read just as quickly without word spaces. I know Latin is highly conjugated, and I've heard the same about Greek, so it may be that word endings are easy to recognize.

My guess is that the reintroduction of word spaces was because the Irish monks' Latin was not as good as their continental colleagues, so it was more difficult for them to read continuous texts; also they wanted to write Gaelic, which maybe has less end-of-word markers...

In English we also do aggretated nouns (eg. word spaces), but usually keep the words separate. Does the German practice reduce ambiguity and help readability? Or does the length of words reduce readability? Or is there no difference?

I also note that German is much more conjugated than English. Is this a factor?

@William
As a drastic example,
the term "Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft" - (very badly) translated in "Danubian steamboat-shipping corporation" - has several combined words (and stems) in it.

Donau (danube), Dampf (steam), Schiff (ship), Fahrt (ride), Gesellschaft (corporation) and "combined words", terms like Dampfschiff ("steamship", steamboat), Schifffahrt (shipping).

This example is hard to read for native german-speaking people too, but a "normal term" like "The declaration of independence" - "Die Unabhängigkeitserklärung" is easy to read for native germans. It depends how many words and stems are combined in one term... you got to be used to... that's all :)

Thomas,
Your example makes perfect sense to me. As an English speaker, I can read antidisestablishmentarianism or dichlorodifluromethane with no problem because I am familiar with those words. There are many other long (for English) technical and scientific terms which I do not know. I slow down reading those a great deal because I have to sound them out and ponder as to their meaning. Familiarity, as you said, is the key.

ChrisL

I think that is the Welsh village already mentioned above by Mili, boyo.

I think the Maori have that beaten though Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoauaotamateaurehaeaturipukapihimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu and you shouldn’t hyphenate proper nouns so maybe it isn’t the best test, wide measure too.

Tim

I'm too annoyed by that widow:)
Does your search have a motive or is it curiosity?
Tim

Another good thing about testing type in foreign languages is that you look more at the letter combinations than you would in your native tongue since you don't get caught up reading the text.

ChrisL

Thanks John, doesn't sound like a healthy place to visit :-)

I wish there were a word that said:
Darkchocolateandhazelnutswithespressoeatingplace instead;-D

ChrisL

Get some for me too Lari!

ChrisL