The Wednesday Quiz -- Season II -- Quiz 11
Countries and Languages
The Wednesday Quiz is a "closed-book" test of knowledge and intuition; please do not look up answers, ask others for help, or answer as a team.
Questions about the rules and the ~Fabulous Prizes~ are answered here.
Name that Country!
1. This country has four officially recognized languages. In order of number of speakers, they are: German, French, Italian, and Romansh.
2. This country has eleven official languages: Afrikaans, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu, and English. The literacy rate is around 50%.
3. This country has three national or official languages: Amharic, English, Tigrigna. That Oromo is not also an official language is a bone of contention to its many speakers. The literacy rate is 23.4%.
4. The first language for about 82% of this country's population is English. The second most common first language is Spanish, representing around 11% of the population.
5. The official language of this country is Dutch. Other major languages include the Sranan Tongo creole, Bhojpuri, and Javanese.
6. The population of this country speak Spanish (60.7%), Quechua (21.2%), Aymara (14.6%), and 36 other languages.
7. This country has three official languages: Dutch (spoken by 59% of the population), French (40%), and German (1%).
8. Portuguese the official and nearly universal language of this country. Mirandese, the only other indiginous language, is spoken by less than 1% of the population.
9. This country has five officially recognized languages. In order of number of speakers, they are: Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Gagauz, Bulgarian. For political reasons, they tend to waver on whether to call Romanian "Romanian" or something else.
10. Virtually everyone in this country (but virtually no one anywhere else) speaks the unofficial national language, the earliest texts of which date to the 11th Century. The written language has changed unusually slowly, so that educated residents can read these millennium-old documents without much difficulty. The literacy rate is effectively 100%.
Submit your answers in the comments!
---
This week's Quiz gives you a little linguistic profile of ten different countries.
Name that Country!
2. This country has eleven official languages: Afrikaans, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Swati, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa, Zulu, and English. The literacy rate is around 50%.
3. This country has three national or official languages: Amharic, English, Tigrigna. That Oromo is not also an official language is a bone of contention to its many speakers. The literacy rate is 23.4%.
4. The first language for about 82% of this country's population is English. The second most common first language is Spanish, representing around 11% of the population.
5. The official language of this country is Dutch. Other major languages include the Sranan Tongo creole, Bhojpuri, and Javanese.
6. The population of this country speak Spanish (60.7%), Quechua (21.2%), Aymara (14.6%), and 36 other languages.
7. This country has three official languages: Dutch (spoken by 59% of the population), French (40%), and German (1%).
8. Portuguese the official and nearly universal language of this country. Mirandese, the only other indiginous language, is spoken by less than 1% of the population.
9. This country has five officially recognized languages. In order of number of speakers, they are: Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Gagauz, Bulgarian. For political reasons, they tend to waver on whether to call Romanian "Romanian" or something else.
10. Virtually everyone in this country (but virtually no one anywhere else) speaks the unofficial national language, the earliest texts of which date to the 11th Century. The written language has changed unusually slowly, so that educated residents can read these millennium-old documents without much difficulty. The literacy rate is effectively 100%.
Submit your answers in the comments!
1. Switzerland
ReplyDelete2. South Africa
3. Ethiopia
4. USA
5. Sri Lanka
6. Peru
7. New Guinea
8. Portugal
9. Lichtenstein; or Burkina Faso
I was sure of 1 (one) answer.
Brutal.
1. Switzerland
ReplyDelete2. South Africa
3. Sudan
4. United States
5. Papua New Guinea
6. Bolivia
7. Belgium
8. Brazil
9. Moldova
10. Tibet
1. Switzerland
ReplyDelete2. Republic of South Africa
3. Ethiopia
4. United States of America (The word "official" was not used in this clue.)
5. Indonesia
6. Peru Bolivia Bolivia Peru I'll chose Bolivia
7. Suriname
8. Portugal
9. Ukraine
10. Vatican City
Ouch that was HARD...(I only feel really good about 3 or 4 of them...)
1. Switzerland.
ReplyDelete2. South Africa.
3. Ethiopia? where the Christians are.
4. United States?
5. Java, I guess.
6. Mexico.
7. The Netherlands.
8. Brazil? Portugal is too easy.
9. Romania? going with the easy one this time.
10. Iceland.
1. Schweiz
ReplyDelete2. Sud Afrika
3. Sri Lanka
4. Phillipines
5. Indonesia
6. Guatemala
7. Belgium
8. Mozambique
9. Moldova
10. Japan
11. Maybe, maybe not
2 is south africa
ReplyDelete6 is spain
10 is the vatican
1 Switzerland
ReplyDelete2 South Africa
3 Somalia
4 United States
5 Indonesia
6 Peru
7 Belgium
8 Portugal
9 Hungary
10 Bhutan
1. Switzerland
ReplyDelete2. South Africa
3. Ethiopia
4. USA
5. Indonesia
6. Peru
7. Belgian (where Dutch = Flemish)
8. Portugal
9. Moldova
10. Iceland
1. Switzerland
ReplyDelete2. No wonder the literacy rate is 50%. Students would be confused by so many official languages! I'll guess this is South Africa.
3. No clue. I'll guess Tonga.
4. United States?
5. Sumatra
6. Chile
7. Belgium
8. Portugal
9. Romania
10. The Vatican
I retract my answer to #5, although it may have been correct some unknown number of years ago. But I don't know the right answer. Damn.
ReplyDelete1. Switzerland
ReplyDelete2. South Africa
3. Ethiopia
4. USA! USA!
5. East Timor
6. Bolivia
7. ? Suriname
8. Portugal
9. ?Moldova
10. ? ? Malta
Don't expect to do real well on this one, but I like the last question, and I think I know what it is.
ReplyDelete1. Luxembourg
2. South Africa
3. No idea - India?
4. USA?
5. Indonesia
6. Argentina?
7. Guyana?
8. Brazil?
9. Georgia?
10. Greece - I'm guessing you're trying to trick us, and the 11th century refers to the 11th century BC. Of course, if so, it would be millenia-old rather than millenium-old.
1. Switzerland
ReplyDelete2. Zimbabwe
3. Sudan
4. U.S.
5. Congo
6. Peru
7. Holland
8. Brazil
9. Romania
10. Sweden
Hrmm...I should be ok here.
ReplyDelete1. Recognising your 3 major neighbours and your own native language too? Switzerland, assuming that's where Romansch is spoken. EIther them or someone with a similar foreign policy.
2. Could be anywhere in Southern Africa, I guess, but the addition of Sotho makes me think it has to be Lesotho.
3. 23%...ok, still Africa...so we have an ex-British-occupied northern African country which is extremely poor...Nigeria or Ethiopia? Blegh...Ethiopia.
4. I think that might be you guys over there in the US with your Hispanic population. I though tthe number would be bigger, though.
5. Javanese? Indonesia.
6. Quechua...Central America...Peru?
7. French and Dutch? Argh...Belgium? Who else COULD it be?
8. Has to be Portugal, since you called Portugese "indiginous".
9. Argh...what's it called...they even stole the Romanian flag...Moldova?
10. Has to be the Vatican.
my only guesses are
ReplyDelete4. United States
and
10. Greece
what, no answers?!?!
ReplyDeleteYeah, really. There are a lot of folks waiting to be enlightened as to our degree of ignorance...yet again. A lotta slack bloggination goin' on here!
ReplyDeletegrumble, grumble, grumble. We "need" to get our quizzes back the next day! Yes, that is a Need as opposed to a want...
ReplyDeleteHey! We've been having internet problems! Take it easy!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this one seems to be one of those in which, to a mortifying extent, I miscalculated the difficulty level. Studying geography for a decade can give a guy a skewed idea of what constitutes common knowledge. I'm just glad I weeded out the hard ones...
1. German, French, Italian, and Romansh = Switzerland
2. Eleven official languages = South Africa
3. Amharic, English, Tigrigna = Ethiopia. Your workplace probably isn't as fired up about the Census Oromo gaffe as mine is.
4. 82% English, 11% Spanish = los Estados Unidos.
5. Dutch, the Sranan Tongo creole, Bhojpuri, and Javanese = Surinam. Dutch colony, East Indian and Javanese indentured servitude, native creoles. (Most people in Indonesia speak what is now generally called "Indonesian".)
6. Spanish, Quechua, Aymara, etc. = Bolivia
7. Dutch & French = Belgium.
8. Portuguese = Portugal.
9. Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Gagauz, Bulgarian = Moldova. Sometimes they like to call Romanian "Moldovan," but they are starting to lighten up on this affectation.
10. Iceland.
So, let's see, that gives nichim the Quiz Title, followed by DrSchnell and la gringissima, the latter having Emailed in due to technical issues.
ReplyDeleteBring your A-game next week for the exciting season finale!
Perhaps, every time a player demands the answers, one point is deducted from her/his score.... ;-)
ReplyDeleteEvery time a player demands the answers, an angel gets his wings.
ReplyDeleteI like this topic so much I'm going to take the quiz even though it's too late.
ReplyDelete1.Switzerland - Romansh is the give-away
2.South Africa - is Xhosa spoken any further north?
3.Egypt - I was all "Amharic, oh that was spoken in some ancient empire not for from the 'cradle of civilization'." And then when I thought may way into Africa I didn't go far enough.
4.United States - I thought my guess would be wrong because 82% seems high for native speakers.
5.Indonesia - Do I get half a point for guessing Surinam two questions late? Didn't think so.
6.Peru - Darn South American countries, all having different names. Can't I call them all 'Peru'?
7.Surinam - I thought it was going to be some third world country left in linguistic ruins by decades of overlapping European overlords.
8.Portugal - Heh, I just put it because I knew Brazil had a kazillion native languages and I didn't know anyone else who spoke Portuguese.
9.Romania - I was guessing that they didn't want to imply that the Romanian-speaking ethnic group was more patriotic than the others.
10.Iceland - I was once so bored that I walked up to the university to attend a free lecture on the history of Icelandic literature.
I didn't think it was harder than the typical quiz. Not easier than the typical quiz either, mind you.
ReplyDelete