Look Smart Trivia: Written Languages
5The Latin alphabet is but one way humans have figured out to turn the sounds from their mouths into lines on paper (or clay, or stone, or whatever). Here are five others that, given a twist or two in history, could have been the ones to hold sway over half the globe. Identify all five languages shown here and you’ll win a $5 Meh coupon, which spells “HELL YEAH, SCORE!” in any language. Insert signoff catchphrase here!
Yesterday’s Atari 2600 Games quiz was way too easy, judging by how quickly @Ignorant (and many others) guessed them all. Point taken - I’ll dig much deeper into vintage gaming lore next time and make you guys work for that $5 coupon:
- Stampede
- Eggomania
- Summer Games
- Venture
- Keystone Kapers
- 17 comments, 14 replies
- Comment
It’s all Greek to me…
(actually, afaik, none of it is Greek, but I couldn’t resist
)
I got 1-4 easy (shoutout to the [Trivia Answer 1] Church down the street from where I live) but is the last one upside down or something? I’ve found languages that look similar, but nothing that actually has those characters. I’m convinced this is a fictional language that some nerds liked enough to put on wikipedia, like klingon or elvish.
@Moose I guess there are a lot of fictional languages.
http://flavorwire.com/305873/10-fictional-alphabets-you-can-actually-use
@sammydog01 It’s very much real.
@Moose It’s not fictional, nor an invented language, and neither is it some kind of scientific notation. It’s a real, natural, living human language in the conventional sense.
i’m gonna say #1 is wingdings.
Can i pull up a photo of IRIK?
I had no idea there were so many different alphabets. My phone isn’t big enough to figure these out.
Google Translate has many helpful tools beyond just copying and pasting text into the box (it won’t help with number 5 though)
Pahawh Hmong?
None are Khmer (Cambodian), Sanskrit, Ojibwa or Navajo… Run out of languages I recognize (well not counting European ones using Roman alphabet letters, and actually most Native American languages are transliterated).
I think I found 5 if anyone needs a hint. Good thing it’s a weekend.
Props to the PartnerBeast for helping me ID the first one!
@Kawa Did Elizabeth Warren help you with your answer to number 5?
@Kawa 3 is something else that uses Cyrillic.
@mschuette Mongolian?
It’s all Comic Sans to me.
/image “Comic Sans”
Got stuck on the 5th. I don’t have a font that displays Cherokee it seems
Also I can’t figure out what the subject of 1 is… eye, wave, radiation? The middle three are all about apples. But the first doesn’t seem to be about apples which is a weird pattern.
@thedarkhaze I looked up alphabet images.
Been waiting for others to catch on to the Tsalagi for a while. I whispered this to myself around 2pm. I didn’t bother to pursue which Cyrillic language that was since I already won this week.
I think I got #3, but I feel bad stealing other peoples #5 since I couldn’t find that one.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@metaphore Congrats! Assuming you’re right.
@metaphore
I’m stealing that bad feeling from you.
@Fduch Congrats! Assuming you’re right.
@Fduch 2) also looks a lot like Malayalam, but everyone here thinks it’s Tamil, so I’m going with the flow.
@Fduch Ukrainian does look more right, good job.
@metaphore
Oh my! I found all the wiki pages, but forgot to check the names of the actual languages!
1 is Amharic!
@metaphore
Well, and 4 is Persian >_<
I agree with the rest,
Oh my! I found all the wiki pages, but forgot to check the names of the actual languages!
1 https://am.wikipedia.org/wiki/ብርሃን (1 click on a link of the language’s current main wiki page)
2 https://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/ஆப்பிள்#சீமையிலந்தம்பழம்_(ஆப்பிள்)%E0%AE%87%E0%AE%B0%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%99%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%B3%E0%AF%8D
3 https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Яблуко#Походження%D1%82%D0%B0_%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%82%D0%B8_%D1%8F%D0%B1%D0%BB%D1%83%D0%BA
4 https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/سیب
5 https://chr.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᎤᎵᎮᎵᏍᏗ (Really? The main page? No apples now? There is an article about apple in Cherokee)