Sunday, October 12, 2008

The Monday Quiz XLVII

On the eve of DorkFest '08, it's a Monday Quiz on

Languages

It's been a while since we visited this topic, and I don't think we ever have on a Monday.

What languages are the following bits of text in?

1.




2.



3.



4.



5.



Submit your answers in the comments.

26 comments:

Karin said...

1. German
2. Korean
3. Vietnamese
4. Thai
5. Somali

Morgan said...

1. German
2. Korean
3. Hindi?
4. Arabic
5. Swahili?

Anonymous said...

1 / German
2 / Korean
3 / Vietnamese
4 / Sanskrit ???
5 / Somali

Anonymous said...

German
Japanese
Vietnamese
arabic
somali

MJ said...

1. german
2. corean
3. whatever they speak in viet-nam
4. thai?
5. transcription from arab?

Cartophiliac said...

1. German
2. Korean
3. Vietnamese
4. Hindi
5. Swahili

Christine M. said...

1. German
2. Korean
3. Vietnamese
4. Mmm, how 'bout Bengali?
5. Mmm, how 'bout Indonesian?

d said...

german
mandarin
nepalese
aramaic
klingon

Nichim said...

1. German
2. Korean
3. Vietnamese
4. One of those Devanagari script languages. It actually was Hindi last time, will you be tricking us this time? In honor of my friend Arpan, I'll say Bengali, one of the 6 languages with the most speakers in the world. But it's probably Hindi. Or Sanskrit.
5. Somali

Rebel said...

1. A Germanic language of some flavor... are you doing one of those 'old german' 'middle norse' things again? I say German.

2. Korean

3. Vietnamese?

4. Tagalog?

5. Somali?

I'm taking it as a personal affront that you did not include Thai on this quiz. I've learned 5 whole letters!!!!

Anonymous said...

1 German
2 Korean
3 Vietnamese
4 Hindi
5 Aintgottacluese. Indonesian?

Ben said...

1. German (Deutsch). That's one bright and shiny gold chariot Pharoah has...
2. Looks like Korean
3. Vietnamese?
4. Hebrew?
5. Kurdish

Notably absent: Ubbi-Dubbi and Pig Latin.

margaret said...

1. German
2. Korean
3 Vietnamese
4. Hindi (or is it Urdu?)
5. Esperanto

McGuff said...

1. German
2. Korean. I smell a small rat but can't come up with anything that closely related to Korean. Must just be a funky font.
3. Vietnamese
4. Sanskrit. Characters hanging from the clothesline.
5. It seems African. Let's try Amharic, since you've recently made several cross references to past quizzes.

Jeff Laughlin said...

1. Jargon
2. Slang
3. Wordholes
4. Ebonics
5. Another One
6. Bonus One

fingerstothebone said...

Isn't the Monday quiz suppose to be about images? You can say that these files are image files, but does paragraphs of text in an image file qualify as an 'image?' Maybe that's why there's never been a language quiz on a Monday?

1. I have no idea, but I'll say German.
2. Korean
3. Vietnamese
4. Hindi
5. I don't know, Finnish or something.

Rebel said...

I think fingers has taken an early lead in Dorkfest 2008. ;)

fingerstothebone said...

Woohoo! Rebel, I'll put you down as a reference!

Michael5000 said...

Lessee, which ones did I go with again?

1. German!
2. Korean!
3. Vietnamese!
4. Hindi!
5. Somali!

For number four, Bengali or Sanskrit were quite acceptable too, as they also use the Devenagari script and it's not like I expect you to KNOW the language. Thai and Tagalog both seemed like, yeah, I see what you were getting at, but not quite.

For number five, Swahili and Esperanto are both pretty reasonable. But eh, I'm gonna be tight today.

Michael5000 said...

That means that Karmasartre and Nichim are our winners this DorkFest Eve.

That's two Exclamation Points in a row for nichim, bringing her to five total. With eleven, Karma jumps back into a tie for fifth on the all-time leaderboard.

Michael5000 said...

@MJ: Transcription -- is that what you can "transliteration"? -- from Arabic was a pretty good guess too. I think there is a lot of interborrowing between Arabic and Somali.

@d: Klingon is written in kind of a campy evil industrial alphabet, if memory serves.

@Reb: I didn't include Thai because I was afraid of being accused of being in your tank.

@Ben: Sorry about the Ubbi-Dubbi. I've only got five slots on Monday!

@Margaret: [belts]Essss Per Onnntoooooo! Why don't you come to your seeeeenses! You've been out riding fennnnnces toooo loooooooong![/belts]

@Business: All correct on the next higher plane of reality, of course. Your prize? A fresh steamed Orange Mervis, Arizona, served "on the beach" style.

@Fingers: Are you suggesting that typography lacks a significant imagistic component? And you, a [fabulous] book artist? For shame.

Incidentally, Finnish was a pretty reasonable guess too.

fingerstothebone said...

Ah, but it wasn't exactly typography you were asking about now, was it?

Rebel said...

Michael... I double dog dare you to translate that song into Esperanto!!!

MJ said...

ummm, yes transliteration, nice word... must remember that one. thanks!

Anonymous said...

So given your willingness to accept Bengali or Sanskrit for Hindi given their written in the same script, would you have been willing to accept Hmong, or English, for the Somali? I'm sure, to someone who can read Hindi, Bengali is immediately recognizable as at least "not-Hindi" in the same way that Somali is immediately recognizable to us as at least "not-English."

Anonymous said...

Ah, upon reading more thoroughly I see that you did almost decide to give credit for Swahili or Esperanto, both "Latin script" languages. Your decision not to, however, given your reasonable expectations of your audience with regards to the respective scripts, makes sense to me. Just wait 'till you get a lot of Indian readers though.