The final event of the M5K Decathlon does not involve flags (although that was a reasonable prediction, Phineas) but rather language recognition. Below, you will find the Christian Lord's Prayer -- the traditional text used for this kind of thing -- in fourteen different languages. Your mission is of course to identify the language for each.
What makes this difficult is that I am not going to tell you which languages you have to choose from. I will, however, give you these hints:
- Three of the languages are archaic forms of modern languages that are still spoken.
- One of the languages is still spoken, but would generally be thought endangered.
- The languages in non-Latin alphabets are the most common languages that use those alphabets. If you saw the Arabic script, for instance, you could safely assume that it was Arabic and not Urdu (which uses a slightly different alphabet, but you get my point).
Answers may be posted in the comments or Emailed to M5Kdecathlon@gmail.com.
Judging: Nothing fancy. Each correct identification is a point. Ties are ties.
Deadline: Due by 10 p.m. Friday, May 16 (Pacific Daylight Time).
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13.
14.
Event #10 and Event #8 are both due Friday, 10 p.m. (PDT)
Results will be posted on Saturday.
17 comments:
1. Croatian
2. Provencal
3. Old English
4. Greek
5. Korean
6. some weird old German dialect
7. Turkish
8. Finnish
9. Looks Russian
10. Gaelic
11. Dutch
12. Cool! What the hell is it? I will guess ... Malay
13. Thai
14. Romanian
1. Romanian
2. Portuguese
3. Old English
4. Greek
5. Korean
6. Swahili?
7. Turkish
8. Finnish
9. Russian
10.Gaelic
11. Dutch
12. Thai
13. Hindi
14. Czech
1. Romanian
2. Portuguese
3. Pidgin
4. Greek
5. Korean
6. Finnish
7. Polish
8. Afrikaner
9. Russian
10. Gaellic
11. Dutch
12. Thai
13. Tibetan
14. Croatian
I'm running on fumes after that last event (though I totally mailed it in, so I really shouldn't be). Here are my guesses so I can get a free bowl of spaghetti for participating (that's what we get, right?):
1. Slovakian
2. Portuguese
3. Old English
4. Russian
5. Korean
6. Greek
7. Bulgarian
8. Farsi
9. Hebrew
10. Gaelic
11. German
12. Sanskrit
13. Ancient Japanese
14. Polish
1 Romanian?
2 Portugese
3 looks like Chaucer, so Middle English
4 looks Greek to me. Ancient Greek
5 Korean
6 looks like Beowulf, so Old English
7 Polish?
8 Finnish
9 Russian
10 Gaelic
11 Dutch
12 I love it, and I haven't a clue. Amharic
13 Hindi
14 Czech
1-14: Greek
So I'm walking to work today, with my pocket atlas in hand, reviewing some country flags, because I thought Phineas had a good point. But then I thought to myself "We haven't done languages yet..."
I'll have to come back to this a bit later. I'm pretty sure none of them are Thai... or French... or any other language I have even a passing familiarity with.
So many of these look so familiar, and yet, and yet...
1. Looks related to #2, I'll guess Portuguese
2. Archaic Spanish
3. Middle English
4. Greek
5. Korean
6. Gaelic
7. Turkish
8. Finnish
9. Russian
10. Irish
11. Norwegian, or maybe Danish, I'll say Norwegian
12. I was going to say Thai, but it doesn't look quite right. Maybe I'll say Amharic.
13. Hindi
14. Hungarian
1. Hungarian?
2. Portuguese
3. English (old-fashioned type)
4. Greek
5. Korean
6. archaic German?
7. Hungarian
8. Swedish
9.Russian
10. Gaelic
11. Dutch
12.I think you made this alphabet up. How about Thai?
13. Hindi
14. Czech
You been pitching fastballs down the middle for a week, and now you break out this nasty slider. Vicious retribution for saying "not too hard" yesterday. And all that flag study time down the tubes.
1. Hungarian
2. Portuguese
3. Old English
4. Greek (but not obviously so. Ancient?)
5. Korean
6. 7. Can we come back to these later?
8. Finnish
9. Russian
10. Gaelic of some age, may be ancient
11. Dutch - but Afrikaans was close behind
12. Thai. But it's problably something else ancient.
13. Hindi
14. Czech
Continued procrastination on #6. Can't get away from some Welsh, Gaelic territory, maybe into Scandinavia somehow. This one has driven me nuts all day. Must be ancient.
6. Ancient Welsh/Gaelic/Manx
7. Serbo-Croatian
1 / Hungarian
2 / Portuguese
3 / Old English (that sounds like a sheep dog though)
4 / Greek
5 / South Korean
6 / Older English
7 / Turk
8 / Finnish
9 / Russian orthodox (that sounds like a sheep dog though)
10 / Irish
11 / Northern European
12 / Spanglish
13 / Urdu
14 / Czech
I said:
"12. I was going to say Thai, but it doesn't look quite right. Maybe I'll say Amharic."
On the bus into town, I suddenly thought, "oh no, Amharic has a lot more circular things in it!" So I'm switching back to Thai, if that's allowed. But that's probably wrong anyhow. Sigh...
ok... so if you haven't actually posted the answers yet can I still guess?
1
2
3 old English
4 Greek?
5 Korean
6
7 Norse
8
9 Russian?
10
11 Old German
12 hindi
13 Japanese
14
Oh for the love of....
OK, here's the key:
1: Romanian. Pretty much impossible in my book, but three of you got it.
2: Portuguese.
3: Middle English. Y'all been neglecting the Chaucer.
4: Greek, ancient.
5: Korean
6: Olde English. That's what Beowulf looks like when you eat it raw.
7: Turkish
8. Finnish
9. Russian
10. Irish
11. Dutch
12. Armenian (really and truly impossible)
13. Hindi
14. Czech
Which brings us to the penultimate winners circle, where once again we find the unstoppable Mrs.5000 in First, with a whopping 12 correct.
La gringissima is right behind her, with 11.
And in a three-way tie at third, it's drschnell, Phineas, and Karmasartre.
I WENT AWAY FOR A LONG WEEKEND!! THIS IS SO UNFAIR THAT I CRIED!!!!!!! I tried so hard at so many things that I am so bad at and know nothing about, and I get in the car to go to the Oregon Mycological Society Spring Foray and only find TWO FREAKING MORELS all weekend, and I come back and you've done language recognition. Sheesh. Thanks for nothing, cruel universe. Romanian. Portuguese. Middle English. Greek (pretty sure ancient not modern). Korean. Old English. Hungarian. Finnish. Russian. Irish. Dutch. Armenian. Hindi (probably but could be any number of languages written in Devanagari script). Czech. Argggh.
Lest my above comment seem unduly bitter, I am pleased that I got them all right and that you weren't up to something devilish like one that looks like Dutch being Flemish, the one that looks like Czech being Slovak and the one that looks like Hindi being Sanskrit or Kashmiri or something. And I really do appreciate your throwing me a bone in this, I just wish I would have been around to take my glory in catching it.
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