Profesoro Richard Blahut

…de la News-Gazette:

“'We have no technology in existence that's capable of carrying on a decent cocktail party conversation,’ University of Illinois Professor Richard Blahut said recently. Still, Blahut, who heads the UI Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, believes computers will be able to converse with us in the next decade or so…

…His explorations aren't confined to English. He speaks, to varying degrees, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Dutch, Welsh and Manx Gaelic, spoken on the Isle of Man. He also is familiar with "dead" languages such as Old English, Old Icelandic, Greek, Latin, Ancient Egyptian and Classical Chinese. He's learning Kannada, a South Indian language.”