Possumblog

You can get a German version of Scrabble. I don't know whether they do many other word games though. English has a larger vocabulary than most, if not all other languages, and therefore word games become much easier to do.

That's kinda what I figured.

I also imagine the pictographic languages would make it pretty hard to have fun, aside from the calligraphic aspect.

Which, of course, brings to mind the phrase, "harder than a Chinese crossword puzzle."

I tried to post a website with information, but apparently a-b-o-u-t-d-o-t-c-o-m is questionable content! Anyway, acrostics have been around since before the time of Christ. Some of the Psalms are acrostics.

Which brings to mind yet another question: Do the pictographic languages have the same wealth of fonts that we do? I've noticed that the Chinglish instructions in various products seem to have been produced by people completely clueless about fonts and typography, leading me to suspect that they don't have font choices to worry about in their native tongues.

But what about all the other word games, Kathy? Was there ever a Sanskrit version of Wheel of Fortune? Do Kazakhstanis go coo-coo for alliteration (and onomatopoeia)?

Tom, I think what you're seeing is just a byproduct of the inexpensive way instructions for those things are done. I think Asian text fonts have as much decorative variety as Western graphics, at least based on the Jackie Chan movies I've seen.

"The Sanskrit frequently uses alliteration, puns, and plays on words."
"Onomatopoeia is one of the most outstanding features of the Japanese language."
If I search for "alliteration+Kazakhstani" I tend to get sites with rude content. I would probably rather not know why.

Well, now--you learn something new every day! Good work, Kathy!