Every card in UKLO 2013

OSV

HintFind which of S, V and O comes first, then the rest.

WhyWord-order labels use S (subject), V (verb) and O (object). English is SVO; Japanese is SOV; Welsh is VSO; a handful of languages, and one famous film character, favour OSV. To find a puzzle language's order, locate the verb in three sentences and see what sits either side of it; then keep that order when you build new sentences.

shortened

HintCompare how you write 's' at the end of a word and inside one in joined-up handwriting.

WhyCursive scripts join letters, and a joined letter often loses its tail. So one letter can have two or more shapes, and a name you are matching may look as if it contains a sign you have not met. Before you add a new sign to your table, ask whether it is an old one in its joined form.

In the noun's ending

HintTurkish and Hungarian do this.

WhyPossessive suffixes replace English 'my', 'your', 'his': one ending per owner, attached to the thing owned. Line the three words up, cut off the shared root, and you have the owner endings — then transfer them to a new noun. Singular 'your' and plural 'your' usually get different endings, so read the brackets in the translations.

Fronting

HintAsk which end of the sentence the object has been moved to.

WhyFronting shifts a phrase to the start of the sentence for emphasis or contrast. English allows it occasionally; some invented speech styles make it the rule, so every sentence begins with what English would put last. When a puzzle's word order looks scrambled, check whether one particular part is always being pulled to the front — the rest of the sentence usually keeps its normal order behind it.

The ordinary plural

HintCompare it with the form the noun takes when no number word is there at all.

WhySome languages keep a special 'count' form for use straight after a number, while 'many' and plain plural sentences take the everyday plural. So do not assume the noun after 'many' will copy the noun after 'three' — check both sets separately, and expect the people-nouns to have a twist of their own.

The script runs right to left

HintLine the two names up beside their English spellings and see which end matches which.

WhyArabic and Hebrew are written from right to left, so the first sound of a name is at the right-hand end. Puzzles with brand names in an unfamiliar script bank on you checking direction early: pick a name with a repeated sound, find the repeated sign, and see which end it sits at.

People versus things

HintNot the number — think what kind of noun follows it.

WhySome languages have separate number words, or separate count forms, for people and for objects — a bit like English 'who' against 'what'. Sort the nouns into people and things and see which numeral each takes; then check what other quantity words do.

A phoneme

HintCount these, not letters, when you match words to a sound-alphabet.

WhySpelling and sounds disagree constantly in English — 'ship' has four letters and three phonemes. Scripts designed one-sign-per-sound (the IPA, or an invented alphabet for English) count phonemes, not letters, so turn a word into sounds before you count its signs.

3

HintSay it slowly and count what you hear, not what you see.

Why'thought' is th + aw + t: three phonemes. In an unfamiliar alphabet built one sign per sound, a seven-letter English word may need only three signs — so match by sounds, never by letters.

An alphabet

HintNot a syllabary and not a picture-script.

WhyAn alphabet writes sounds; a syllabary writes syllables; a logographic script writes whole words. Knowing which type you face tells you what to count and what to match. Some alphabets have no capital letters at all, and some pair related sounds with related shapes — a clue worth testing on the data.

vowels

HintThink what 'bnk' still lets you read as 'bank'.

WhyA word in such a script can look shorter than its pronunciation, and two different words can share one spelling. When you transliterate a brand name into it, expect some of the English letters to have no sign at all — usually the short ones between consonants — while long ones are written.

subject; object; owner

HintThree jobs a noun can do in 'Anna's dog bit the postman'.

WhyCases are role-endings. Latin has six; German has four; English keeps traces in pronouns ('I' / 'me' / 'my') and in possessive 's. In a puzzle, list each noun with the endings it shows, then match ending to role using the English translation — the owner ending will appear wherever the English has 'of' or an apostrophe.