Comments on: Tambal byuyun, no es fácil!

Tambal byuyun, no es fácil!

iamkimiam — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:38:59 -0800

Linguistics Challenge Puzzles! (Difficulty ranging from green circles to double black diamonds...Friday fun for all!)

For more puzzles, check out the International Linguistic Olympics Site. Kila la kheri!

By: The Winsome Parker Lewis

The Winsome Parker Lewis — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:46:38 -0800

Wow, these look absurdly difficult but I'll have fun trying them! Also, that page is rather red.

By: The Winsome Parker Lewis

The Winsome Parker Lewis — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:57:54 -0800

I just finished the Chickasaw one but I can't get the score field(s) to update, so I have no idea how I did. :-(

By: edbles

edbles — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:00:04 -0800

Clicking inside the text boxes seems to update them.

By: shakespeherian

shakespeherian — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:05:24 -0800

I just solved a Swahili of the Eastern Congo puzzle and was told 'Congratulations! You have solved the Turkish puzzle.'

By: The Winsome Parker Lewis

The Winsome Parker Lewis — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:05:34 -0800

Must just be my browser then. Carry on.

By: antifuse

antifuse — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:16:04 -0800

Omg, the red! It's all red!

By: elizardbits

elizardbits — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:17:17 -0800

Dammit. The only one I have any reasonable hope of solving - quechua - does not appear to be working. SADFACE. I will console myself by failing horribly at the thai one.

By: ocherdraco

ocherdraco — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:25:51 -0800

OMG! Heaven. (Puzzles like these are pretty much the entire reason I majored in Linguistics.)

By: Fizz

Fizz — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:27:13 -0800

Is the RED page a part of the puzzle. Meant to drive you insane and blind you so that it's more difficult to solve.

By: xbonesgt

xbonesgt — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:27:51 -0800

anyone else having trouble with the French one? The Javascript isn't working in Firefox on Linux.

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:29:42 -0800

I can't get the Chickasaw one to work either. For the record, here are my answers: 1. Hattakat ihooã hollo. 2. Kowi'at shoha. 3. Holloli. 4. The woman loves me. 5. The dog dances. 6. I chase the cat. Anybody want to compare?

By: two or three cars parked under the stars

two or three cars parked under the stars — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:33:52 -0800

The French one works for me in Google Chrome, but not Chickasaw. Cool post!

By: overeducated_alligator

overeducated_alligator — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:37:48 -0800

REDRUM

By: MrBobaFett

MrBobaFett — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:41:25 -0800

Johnny Assay, I get the same answers for 1, 2, 5 and 6. I didn't solve the other two.

By: the cydonian

the cydonian — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:43:19 -0800

I feel I had successfully figured out the Chickasaw puzzle but the JS thing isn't working for me in MSIE 8 and Opera 9.0. That makes me sad. Very sad.

By: Forktine

Forktine — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:01:55 -0800

It didn't seem to work with my browser, unfortunately.

By: lydhre

lydhre — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:10:45 -0800

The ones it allows me to do and verify are AWESOME. AWESOME. I'm getting through the blues, though I had problems checking the Chickasaw one too.

By: The Winsome Parker Lewis

The Winsome Parker Lewis — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:12:12 -0800

Maybe the problem is quiz-specific (since Chickasaw seems to be broken for everybody). Anyone want to make a list of the ones that are known to work?

By: CheeseLouise

CheeseLouise — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:17:40 -0800

The Agta one worked for me (Chrome). That's the only one I tried so far.

By: lydhre

lydhre — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:20:10 -0800

All the green ones except the Chickasaw one work.

By: ashirys

ashirys — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:22:24 -0800

Very cool! Managed to figure out the Nahuatl one pretty easily. You can keep updating the fields and changing your answers until you get them all correct. Just click in another field or tab out to get it to update. The hint about scratch paper really is spot on; it helped me a lot to sit down with a list of the applicable tenses and persons and write out what the rules were for each. And I think the Nahuatl puzzle is a lot simpler than some, since it's just verb conjugation with no objects (ie. I was singing, he sleeps, they cry, etc.). I wish there was a harder version of the Nahuatl puzzle, actually; I'm curious now how more complex subjects and objects affect things. Will have to try some of the other languages later. Still, this is very fun, thanks for the link! (Nahuatl works in Firefox, for what it's worth. Haven't tried any others.)

By: steambadger

steambadger — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:29:15 -0800

Agta works. Chickasaw does not work. Kurdish opens as a pdf, and so does not work. Nahuatl works. Swahili works. Tajik works, but says "Good start!" after the first one no matter what one types. Turkish works. Yaqui works. Clicking "Next Puzzle in Series" after Yaqui goes to a blank page. That's all I've done so far. Mac OS 10.5.8, Firefox 3.5.11

By: malthas

malthas — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:30:02 -0800

Uhhh, this is totally awesome and going to suck up all of my time this evening.

By: thesmophoron

thesmophoron — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:33:30 -0800

I like these. Here's Samoan: 1. The cat got scared. 2. The mice chased away the cat. 3. 'Ua lalafi tama. 4. 'Ua pu'e e 'isumu le maile. 5. 'Ua fafasi e le teine pua'a. Lots of interesting things going on here. 1. The syntactic subject is literally the subject/recipient of the action, rather than the agent. That is, the top-level noun phrase is the noun that changes, state, regardless of whether it's doing the action. Therefore: "fafasi" (killed-pl) instead of "fasi" (killed-sing) because it's "pua'a" (pigs-pl) instead of "le teine" (girl-sing) that is the grammatical subject. 2. State changes are kind of almost semi-reflexive. "The girls got scared" translates into a Samoan phrase with no clear agent. 3. Particle-based morphology. Null-determiner for plurals, "le" for singular. "e" indicates subject if the verb subselects for both an agent and a recipient. Pretty neat stuff. I'll take a look at Chickasaw.

By: deadmessenger

deadmessenger — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:57:46 -0800

Anybody want to compare? posted by Johnny Assay at 11:29 AM on August 20 [+] [!] Mrs. Deadmessenger's answers were identical to yours.

By: thesmophoron

thesmophoron — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:59:04 -0800

Amharic: 1. Only two phrases have three syllables (KoKoCu and piyano). The rest of the phrases have two syllables. 2. Only two Amharic script phrases have three characters. The rest have two characters. 3. Semitic language writing systems tend to favor expression of consonants, with diacritical marks for indicating vowel sounds if they are indicated at all, resulting in quasi-syllabic characters. 4. From 1, 2, 3, I infer that Amharic has a syllabic writing system. 5. h is the only three-character script that doubles characters. 6. KoKoCu is the only three-syllable phrase that doubles syllables. 7. From 4, 5, 6, I deduce that h is KoKoCu. 8. From 1, 2, 7, I deduce that f is piyano. 9. From 7 I deduce that character (phi+uppercircle) is "Ko" 10. From 9 I deduce that e is KoKe. 11. From 8 I infer that "pi" is (tau+lowerrightdot) 12. From 10 I infer that "-e" is (- + lowerrightcircle) 13. From 11, 12, 3, I deduce that "pe" is (tau+lowerrightcircle). 14. From 13 I deduce that j is "zipe" 15. Two phrases start with "G-", one of which starts with "Ge" 16. Two phrases start with (7 + -), one of which starts with (7 + lowerrightcircle) 17. From 15, 16, 12, I deduce that b is "Geta" 18. From 15, 17, I deduce that g is GaTe 19. From 18 I infer that (mu+-) is "T-" 20. Only one phrase starts with (mu+-); only one word starts with "T-" 21. From 19, 20 I deduce that i is "Tatu" 22. From 21 I infer that "tu" is (tee+midlowerrightdot) 23. There is only one phrase that ends with (tee+midlowerrightdot). There is only one phrase that ends with "-tu" 24. From 22, 23, I deduce that c is "betu" 25. From 3, 12 I deduce that a is "koke" 26. From exhaustion of the enumeration I deduce that d is laba a koke b Geta c betu d laba e KoKe f piyano g GaTe h KoKoCu i Tatu j zipe

By: 256

256 — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:10:58 -0800

Undergrad linguistics flashback! Sound the alarm. Completed Agta, Hawaiian and Czech before the time warp got too intense.

By: two or three cars parked under the stars

two or three cars parked under the stars — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:11:51 -0800

I wish more of the harder ones came with solutions; feels sort of pointless to attempt them if I can never be sure I'm right.

By: sunnichka

sunnichka — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:20:59 -0800

Hooray! Thank you! Linguistics degrees fo-eva!

By: cortex

cortex — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:28:42 -0800

Anybody want to compare? I came up with the same answers, and, yeah, it looks like that puzzle must just be borked.

By: lioness

lioness — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 16:54:04 -0800

The befitting words to articulate my excitement elude me, so I'll settle on *squee!* and "Linguistic Olympics, baby!".

By: motty

motty — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:55:55 -0800

:( on the Chickasaw puzzle being borked thing. Thanks Johnny Assay for that set of answers (I got the same..)

By: motty

motty — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 20:23:07 -0800

Bah. Annoyed by the number of puzzles not working. Endo and French puzzles both seem borked and bah to that. Meanwhile, I have at least learned that telling the time in Czech is fun, for values of 'fun' that apparently include native speakers being used to foreigners arriving exactly one hour late.

By: armisme

armisme — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 00:10:32 -0800

I enjoyed learning diminutive prefixes for a nearly unused language but now i feel strangely colonial.. perhaps a sip of gin will fix the problem....