Lip reading

[willowman]

Are there any languages which are impossible, or extremely difficult to lipread.
And before anybody else say it, yes I know you can't lip read sign language!!

[willowman]

I understand what you are saying, IAP, but some foreign languages eg Chinese, don't seem to have much lip and mouth movement, at least to us they don't. If this is the case how can they lip read the words. I just thought one of these languages might be impossible to lip read.

[heathfield]

Willowman - you mention Chinese and you're moving towards an answer to your question. Chinese language(s) are tonal, as is Thai, for example. This means that the same word can have different meanings, depending on whether it's been pronounced with a high, middle, or low tone, or a rising or falling inflexion. That's up to five meanings for the same word! Rather difficult for the lip-reader, who can't hear the difference?