UKLO 2023

An infix

HintEnglish only does it for fun: 'fan-flipping-tastic'.

The whyEnglish barely has them, so they are easy to miss. In a puzzle, if two related words share a beginning and an ending but differ in the middle, the difference is probably an inserted piece, not a change to the root.

A causative

HintEnglish does it with 'make', or with a change of verb: 'fall' becomes 'fell (a tree)'.

The whyA causative verb means 'make somebody do the plain verb': feed is 'make eat', show is 'make see'. Many languages build causatives with a regular piece, and a matching puzzle will pair plain verbs with their causatives — so once you find the piece, every 'make X' translation is just the plain verb plus that piece.

harmony

HintThe ending has two spellings and the root chooses between them.

The whySounds inside a word like to agree. Vowels may copy the root's vowel class, and a consonant may pick up nasality (an m, n or ng quality) from a nasal elsewhere in the word. When an added piece keeps changing its spelling from word to word, look at the root's sounds: the piece is probably copying one of them.

VOS

HintThree capitals, one for each of doer, deed, done-to — in the order they arrive.

The whyA rare order, but a Foundation favourite because it flips English twice: the noun nearest the verb is the done-to, and the doer waits at the end of the sentence. Test it on a line where subject and object are different nouns — if the English subject keeps landing last in the puzzle column, you have it.

The object

HintCheck the lines where the same person carries one thing, then two.

The whyEnglish verbs agree with their subject and nothing else, so a verb that changes for the object looks like an error at first. Compare two lines with the same subject and different objects: if the ending moves, it is object agreement, and you will need the right ending in every translation you write.

Not future

HintList every English tense that appears opposite the marker-less form.

The whyTense need not be an ending: English 'will' is a separate word, and so are the tense markers of many puzzle languages. A marker that appears only in the future lines says nothing about the rest — a bare verb may be present or past, and only the English column can tell you which.

The article

HintLook at the little word in front of the noun in the two lines.

The whyEnglish nouns carry their own plural, so we rarely look at 'the' for number. Some languages do the opposite: the noun is fixed and the article comes in a singular and a plural form. When you translate into such a language, the article is the only place the number is visible, so choose it deliberately.

once

HintCross off each word as you use it.

The whyThat instruction is a gift: if two words remain and two answers are blank, the pairing is forced, and if a word you wanted has already been used, an earlier answer is wrong. Keep a running tally.

case

HintLatin has six of them; English pronouns still keep two.

The whyA case ending answers the question a preposition would: from where, of whom, towards what. In a puzzle, list every ending you meet against the English preposition it matches, and keep the list — the same ending will turn up on other nouns, and the answer usually needs it in exactly the right slot.

Their order

HintCompare where 'your' sits in two different long words.

The whyLanguages that glue several pieces onto a root keep them in a fixed sequence — possessive before plural before case, say. Work the sequence out from a long word you can already translate, write it as a template, and fill the slots.

sixteen; two; curves

HintHow many signs, how many sounds per sign, and what the carving tool could not manage.

The whySo a match need not be exact: the same rune served for p and b, and an English name may come out a letter or two 'wrong' and still be right. Read a runic word as a set of possible sounds, then pick the reading that makes a name you know.

The Germanic family

HintEnglish 'water', German 'Wasser', Swedish 'vatten' — all one clan.

The whyThe language of the Viking runestones belongs to it too, so an inscription from a thousand years ago still shares words with English. When a puzzle says its language is related to English, use the resemblance: a word that looks like an English family word probably is one. Then check it fits the sentence before you trust it.