Grammars in Contrast Series Series—Series of Series Announcement from Psammeticus Press SpecGram Vol CLV, No 3 Contents

The Polyglot’s Magic Square

John Miaou

Start with a 5x5 table like the one below. The objective is to fill this magic square, one letter per cell, with ten 5-letter words from ten different languages. The catch is that all of the words will only be provided in English translation.

                                  
              
              
              
              
           The ten words (in English) are:
  • blur, noun
  • clipping, noun
  • cover, verb
  • extended, adjective
  • habits, noun
  • olden, adjective
  • river, noun
  • ruse, noun
  • sparrow, noun
  • third, numeral
           And the ten languages are:
  • Danish
  • Dutch
  • English
  • Finnish
  • Hawaiian
  • Indonesian
  • Italian
  • Polish
  • Spanish
  • Swedish

So, you need to find out which word needs to be translated into which language (each word should be translated into only one language), and then also figure out how to fit them into the magic square. There aren’t any diacritics or okinas. It couldn’t be easier, unless you peeked at the solution.

If you think you’ve found the solution, send it to SpecGram by January 15th, and you could win a SpecGram magnet. The solution, along with the names of any winners, will appear in the upcoming February 2009 issue.

Grammars in Contrast Series Series—Series of Series Announcement from Psammeticus Press
SpecGram Vol CLV, No 3 Contents