add english.txt file

english.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,247 @@
+
+
+WITH ANSWERS:
+
+1) What written language is the most complicated in the world? (Hint: It
+uses four character sets.) (Is this question too easy?)  >> Japanese
+
+2) What language has a vocabulary primarily of Arabic origin (about 70%,
+I'm told), but uses the Roman alphabet? (I'd like to know where you found
+the answer!)  >> Maltese
+
+3) What non-Romance language uses a tilde (~) over the letter N? >> Estonian
+
+4) What is the origin of the ampersand symbol? >> Derived from a stylized
+    Latin "ET". The "E" looks like a backward "3", and the "T" is much
+lower than the "E". ("Et" is "and" in Latin.)
+
+5) What is an octothorpe? >>> An obscure term for the "#" symbol
+
+6) What Romance language uses the Hebrew alphabet? (I could be wrong on
+this! Apologies if so.) >>> Ladino (Language of the Sephardic Jews)
+
+What is a lowered dash (typographical symbol)? >> Looks like a "_", but
+ is aligned approximately with the writing line.
+
+The name of a people begins with a symbol that's not a letter.
+What is the symbol, and what is the name? >> !Kung
+
+Referring to the last question, what letter combination is sometimes used
+to represent a sound similar to the symbol? Example of such usage? (Can
+somebody tell me the difference, if there is one?) >> Xhosa
+
+7) What language uses a centered dot within a word?  Where?  Why?
+>> Catalan, between some double L's; there are two different pronunciations
+of double Ls in Catalan.
+
+8) In what language would you find the spelling "naziunal"? (It doesn't
+refer to the National Socialists, by the way; simply a form of "national")
+>> Romansch (or Rumansch?); It's a Swiss dialect, really.  OK, I shouldn't
+have called it a language; I concede.
+
+9) (Fairly easy): What language uses a double accent over
+some of its vowels? (Clue? To the best of my knowledge, no computer's
+extended character set provides this symbol.) >> Hungarian
+
+10) (Easy?) What language includes a numeral in its words, fairly
+frequently? What is the numeral, where does it appear, and what does it
+signify?  >> Indonesian; a "2" at the end of the word; signifies that the
+word is repeated, a commonplace construction in languages of that family.
+
+11) What language, written from left to right, sometimes has vowels above
+consonants? (I mean full-fledged letters; not thinking of Hebrew.) >> Thai
+
+12) What language was once written from top to bottom, with a continuous
+line extending through several words? (I might be somewhat off-base about this
+in detail.)  >> Manchurian (Mongolian?)
+
+In Japanese, what is a "pasocon"? (Can someone tell me what "combanzen"
+means?) >> Personal Computer: "Personal" becomes closer to "pahsonar(u)"
+in Japanese; they also shorten words in their own way.
+
+In what country are the keys arranged "azerty" instead of "qwerty"? >> France
+
+There is a phonetic character set for Chinese, I believe Mandarin. What
+is it called? >> Bopomofo
+
+What do the Mandarin-speaking Chinese call the spoken language we
+call Mandarin? >> Putonghua
+
+13) What language other than Arabic (also Farsi?) and Chinese uses the
+letter "Q" within a word, not followed by a "U"? (QANTAS is an acronym...)
+>> I'm thinking of Albanian; any others?
+
+14) What African language uses a syllabary? (There might be more than one
+answer; I'm thinking of an old language.) >> Amharic, the language
+of Ethiopia.
+
+15) (Very easy, if you know:) What language has a set of symbols that is
+very close to an alphabet, yet assembles them into composite symbols
+that superficially resemble Chinese?  What geometrical shape is
+commonplace in this language, but never seen in modern Chinese (if,
+indeed, it ever appeared in Chinese; not sure...) >> Korean; ellipse
+(and circle).
+
+16) What language has words ending in "...ckx"? >> Flemish
+17) (Too easy?) Similarly, ending in "...ian" (Sometimes "...jan" ?)
+What parts of speech are these? >> Armenian; family names
+
+18) What language, when properly typeset, requires a boldface capital
+for one word? What is the word?  (Not positive about this; I have seen
+specimens of it, however.)  >> German; Gott (God). (Nouns are capitalized;
+boldface gives the effect that capitalization of God does in English.)
+
+A compact bilingual dictionary (between two languages) fairly often had
+symbols imbedded within the definitions that looked like sans-serif T's
+lying on their sides. What did these symbols mean, and why were they
+necessary?  >> The languages were English and Yiddish, the latter written
+with the Hebrew alphabet, from right to left.  Sometimes, when your eyes
+jump to the next line, you aren't sure which direction to read first; this
+symbol helps you. It also shows where to begin reading.
+
+19) In what language do you sometimes find the second (and, I think,
+occasionally the third) letter of a word capitalized, rather than the
+first? (Clue: In some words, whole syllables are silent.) This should be
+easy for some local folk!  >> Irish (Gaelic)
+
+(Just for fun: Can anyone give the 12 months of the Christian calendar as
+rendered in Hawaiian? Some of them are real dillies! It begins,
+"Ianuali, Pepeluali,..." as I remember. Sorry, I've misplaced the answer!
+
+20) What language has inflectional (?) grammatical endings on its words,
+but uses different character sets for the word proper and for the
+grammatical ending? What is the origin of the latter character set?
+>> Japanese; simplified Chinese characters.
+
+21) What language traditionally had two distinct vocabularies, one for
+men, and one for women? (I wouldn't be surprised if there were more than
+one answer.) >> Japanese
+
+(Unfair!): What computer programming language requires an extensive
+additional character set, containing several unique symbols (I think!)?
+ >> APL
+
+There is a rarely-used symbol similar to the percent sign (%), except that
+it has two circles (zeros?) to the right of the diagonal. What is it
+called, and what does it signify? ( "o/oo " sort of gives the idea.)
+>> "Per mil"; parts per thousand, instead of parts per hundred.
+
+Again, for fun: How many names can you come up with for the regular "/"
+symbol? I'm fairly sure of four, maybe five. >> Virgule, slash, solidus,
+fraction bar.
+
+A short form of the name of a holiday includes a non-Roman letter.
+Details? (Probably easy; do we think of fish?) Xmas; the "X" is a Greek
+"Chi", which traditionally represents Christ.
+
+22) What well-known European language used (and perhaps still uses) a
+letter J in place of an initial capital I? (At least, it looked like a J!)
+Perhaps it was used only for some words. >> German
+
+  Another, from math: The 19th-century square root symbol differed from
+the one we commonly use today; it was simply a check-mark-like symbol, the
+same as the left part of our present-day symbol. However, it didn't
+necessarily include the horizontal overbar. Explain. >> In the 19th
+Century, an overbar was sometimes used to group math. "elements" in the
+same way we now use parentheses. In the 19th Century, the overbar was
+frequently used with the square root symbol to group the terms which were
+to have their root taken.
+
+  Give the proper spelling for the name of this symbol: ^
+(If it's upside-down, you'll find it frequently in a European language.
+What is the language, and what is it called in that language?) Czech;
+klicka.
+
+  What language sometimes has a diagonal stroke through the letter "l" ?
+(Clue: The same language sometimes has an accent (not a tilde) over the
+letter "n".)  >> Polish
+
+Before the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F became accepted to represent
+digits in hexadecimal, other letters were sometimes used. Which?
+(Honestly, I'm *not* sure of my facts on this one, just reasonably so.)
+>> u,v,w,x,y,and z.
+
+One language changed from the Arabic alphabet to the Roman in this
+century. Which? About when? >> Turkish; in the 1920s
+
+Another language, now written with the Roman alphabet, was not always
+written so. In addition, it has almost no words longer than six letters,
+and can easily be distinguished from just about any other language using
+the Roman alphabet, even at a distance long enough for it to be hard to
+read. What is it?  >> Vietnamese
+
+What language sometimes has an umlaut (dieresis?) above the letter "y"?
+>> Finnish
+
+One alphabet is so difficult to typeset well that only when computers were
+used to help establish proper letter forms was typesetting really
+satisfactory. Which is it? >> Arabic
+
+Something I don't know: How many alphabets are used in India? (My guess is
+about 20).
+
+One alphabet, when handwritten, has a stroke written through several
+consecutive letters as the last stroke of a (word?). Which? (Not hard for
+those who know...) Devanagari, used for Hindi and Sanskrit
+
+At least one language, and probably several of the same family, has two
+sets of symbols that differ slightly in ratio of width to height for
+appearance's sake; it has nothing whatsoever to do with condensed or
+extended type. Furthermore, there is a need for no more than two
+varieties. (Question is hard to phrase without giving away the answer!)
+>> Japanese; for setting type for a line to be read from the top down,
+the characters differ subtly from those for left-to-right.
+
+There's a beach with a name that contains three consecutive identical
+vowels. Where? What is the name? >> Kaaawa Beach, on Oahu, as I recall.
+
+One language has single dots over some "g's". Which? (I'll bet someone
+comes up with a different one from the one I have in mind!) >> Maltese
+
+(Easy!) Which non-Romance language signifies a distinct sound by
+a double "l" ? (More than one?) Welsh
+
+   In fairness, some of the languages I have in mind are not known to the
+general public, but are distinctive enough to be regarded by most
+linguists as individual languages.  None is as obscure as, say, a
+little-known African dialect or such.
+
+  A national language on occasion is printed with a very different
+spelling from the traditional. It uses the Roman alphabet. Which?
+(Again, there might be several answers.)  >> Haitian Creole
+(In fairness, some purists don't classify it as a language, but it is
+what's spoken by the great majority of the people of this country.) No,
+it's not spoken in Africa.
+
+Name a European country that has three principal languages, with several
+local dialects. (Easy)  >> Switzerland: German, French, and Italian
+
+Name another European country that has two major languages, neither of
+them Slavic.  >> Belgium; Flemish and French
+
+While on that, how about a European language that uses two different
+alphabets (although, I assume, rarely, if ever, in the same document).
+>> Serbo-Croatian
+
+  If this collection seems almost hopeless, it took me decades of
+dilettante linguistic curiosity to come up with them; I think a number of
+them are tough questions that might even give a professional linguist a
+moment's pause in a case or two.  I should state in all fairness that many
+have come from memory, and some would require rather extensive digging to
+confirm. I'm reasonably sure of all of them, but would welcome
+enlightenment from anybody who is quite sure of the facts.
+
+   Having come this far, you can probably stump me with a bunch. I'm not
+ much for vocabularies; I don't know any significant amount of any language
+ except for some Spanish.  Hope you had fun!
+
+
+(I see some need for updates as I read this while uploading. Thai isn't the only language that places the vowels above the consonants. Indeed, many Asian writing
+systems have essentially only consonants; the vowels are "added on" to the consonant symbol.  Creole is spoken in Africa (Sierra Leone, for one).
+
+No promises, but I might update this and upload the revised version.
+Truth is, I didn't realize that it's no longer the best I can come up with in some
+instances!  Thnaks, anyhow.
+               ^---No way to fix such errors!
+
+Oh, yes: A ^ is called a "caret".