Can you read the runes? Alex Bellos’s new book, The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book, celebrates the amazing diversity of the world’s languages with brainteasers that involve wordplay, logical deduction and decipherment skills. Extracted below are eight puzzles to test your verbal skills.
Odd Couples
For each of the pairs of words shown below, provide a grammatical and meaningful sentence in which they appear. In each case the words must appear consecutively in the order in which they are shown, with no punctuation marks between them.
a) could to
b) he have
c) that that
d) the John
e) that than
The Knights Who Say Ni
Here are some numbers in Danish:
fire 4
nioghalvfjerds 79
toogtyve 22
seksogtres 66
ni 9
syvoghalvtreds 57
enogfirs 81
tre 3
fem 5
What are the following numbers? seks, nioghalvtreds, treogtyve, femoghalvfems, toogtres, halvfjerds
What are these numbers in Danish? 7, 54, 21, 85, 99
The Cousin Who Hunts Ducks
For each of the following phrases, complete the sentence in two ways, such that the sentence structures are different. There will be an obvious structure, and a less obvious one. For example: The old train …
The old train is broken
The old train the young
The structure of the first sentence is [The old train] [is broken], and the structure of the second is [The old] [train] [the young]. In the first one, “train” is a noun and in the second it is a verb. Now try your hand at these:
a) The cousin who hunts ducks …
b) The florist sent the flowers …
c) The cotton clothing …
d) The woman who whistles tunes …
e) We painted the wall with …
f) I convinced her children …
g) When the baby eats food …
h) Mary gave the child the dog …
i) The girl told the story …
j) That John is never here …
Norse Code
Elder futhark is Europe’s oldest runic alphabet, used in Scandinavia to write Old Norse between the second and eighth centuries AD. Below are the names of 11 Old Norse gods written in elder futhark runes. The Anglicised names are given for nine of them. Match the correct names to their runes, and translate into English the names of the two remaining gods.
1. ᛒᚨᛚᛞᚱ
2. ᚦᛟᚱ
3. ᛁᚦᚢᚾᚾ
4. ᛞᚨᚷᚱ
5. ᚾᛟᛏᛏ
6. ᚠᚱᛖᛁᛃᚨ
7. ᛃᛟᚱᚦ
8. ᛞᛖᛚᛁᛜᛖᚱ
9. ᚠᚱᛖᛁᚱ
10. ᛟᛞᛁᚾ j)
11. ᛊᛟᛚ k)
a) Baldur, b) Dallinger, c) Day, d) Earth, e) Freya, f) Freyr, g) Ithun, h) Night, i) Sun j) ?, k) ?
The Farfar North
The following four words are common to Danish, Norwegian and Swedish:
mormor, morfar, farmor, farfar
The first word can be translated as “grandmother”. But usually it means something more precise. What are the precise meanings of all these words?
A Week in Tokyo
The Japanese days of the week, in order, are named after the sun, the moon, fire, water, wood, metal and earth. Here are some Japanese words, written in English transliteration, and their translations:
Nichibotsu Sunset
Mokuhanga Wood blockprint
Kaji Fire event
Suimen Water surface
Suion Water temperature
Donabe Earthen pot
Kin Gold
Dochi Land
Mokuyobi Thursday
Getsumen Moon’s surface
Guess the words for the Japanese days of the week.
All puzzles taken from The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book, to be published by Guardian Faber on 5 November
Scroll down for the solutions …
SOLUTIONS
Odd Couples
Here are some sentences that work:
a) ‘I did all that I could to please my God.’
b) ‘Does he have it?’
c) ‘I can see that that will be a problem.’
d) ‘I saw the John Lewis advert.’
e) ‘Better that than the alternative.’
The Knights Who Say Ni
seks 6, nioghalvtreds 59, treogtyve 23, femoghalvfems 95, toogtres 62, halvfjerds 70.
7 syv, 54 fireoghalvtreds, 21 enogtyve, 85 femogfirs, 99 nioghalvfems.
The Cousin Who Hunts Ducks
Here are some sentences that work:
a) The cousin who hunts ducks is a good hunter.
The cousin who hunts ducks out on weekends.
b) The florist sent the flowers to his lover.
The florist sent the flowers was surprised to receive such an unoriginal gift.
c) The cotton clothing dries faster.
The cotton clothing is made of is imported.
d) The woman who whistles tunes is tone-deaf.
The woman who whistles tunes pianos.
e) We painted the wall with blue paint.
We painted the wall with cracks.
f) I convinced her children to go to sleep.
I convinced her children are evil.
g) When the baby eats food the mum is overjoyed.
When the baby eats food gets thrown.
h) Mary gave the child the dog for Christmas.
Mary gave the child the dog bit a plaster.
Norse Code
1a, 2j (Thor), 3g, 4c, 5h, 6e, 7d, 8b, 9f, 10k (Odin), 11i
The Farfar North
mormor: maternal grandmother (mother’s mother)
morfar: maternal grandfather (mother’s father)
farmor: paternal grandmother (father’s mother)
farfar: paternal grandfather (father’s father)
A Week in Tokyo
The days of the week starting with Sunday are:
Nichiyobi, Getsuyobi, Kayobi, Suiyobi, Mokuyobi, Kinyobi, Doyobi
For more detailed explanations of the solutions, please go to alexbellos.com/language
The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book is published by Guardian Faber Publishing (£11.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
