UKLO 2024

length

HintWrite the nouns in two columns and look at the columns, not the words.

The whyA grammar rule can be triggered by the shape of a word rather than its meaning or its class. When two endings seem to do the same job, line the nouns up by how many syllables they have (or by their last sound) before you look for a meaning-based reason. Then test the rule on words that are not nouns — a puzzle may ask exactly which words it applies to.

Compare where it appears

HintPresence and absence are both clues.

The whyYou can read a script you cannot pronounce. List the packets that carry the word and the packets that do not, and ask what the first group shares that the second lacks — flowers rather than vegetables, say. Absence is as informative as presence.

Norman French

Hint1066.

The whyAfter the Conquest the people who reared the animals spoke English and the people who ate the meat spoke French — hence the split. Most languages have no such split and say 'cow-meat'. In a puzzle, expect the animal's name to reappear inside the words for its meat and its other products.

An agglutinative language

HintTurkish and Swahili are the classic examples.

The whyWhere English says 'we can still see you' in five words, such a language says it in one, with a slot for each idea. The good news is that the slots come in a fixed order. Draw the template — subject, extra meaning, object, root — and every new word is a fill-in-the-blanks exercise.

Inside the verb

HintCompare with the word for 'we can see them'.

The whyEnglish puts the object after the verb as a separate word. A language may instead give it a slot inside the verb, often with a different form from the subject piece ('you' as doer and 'you' as done-to need not match). In 2024 each slot scored separately, and a slot in the wrong position scored nothing.

slot

HintCompare 'You sing' with the question: what appeared, and what did it add?

The whyNot every piece of a word or sentence means something. Some appear by default and vanish the moment a real piece takes their place. If a puzzle piece seems to come and go for no reason, check whether something else is present whenever it is absent.

Evidentiality

HintThe grammar of 'how do you know?'

The whyEnglish adds 'because I saw it' as optional extra detail; some languages of South America and elsewhere build it into the verb ending and give the speaker no choice. In a puzzle, the English column will explain what evidence each speaker had — that explanation, not the sentence, is the key to the ending.

It matches no puzzle word

HintCount the signs against the English words.

The whySetters bracket the English words they had to add for the sentence to read naturally. Strike them out before you start matching, or you will hunt for a puzzle word that does not exist. The same goes for words in the English column that the puzzle language leaves out, such as a missing article.

An analytic language

HintThe opposite pole to Turkish — count the words in 'we can still see you'.

The whyChinese and Vietnamese are the classic examples; English is well along that road. In a puzzle, the contrast tells you what to expect: an analytic language gives you many short words to order, an agglutinative one a few long words to take apart.

inference

HintSherlock, not eyewitness.

The whySome languages split it two ways (seen / not seen); a few, in South America, split it five ways — seen, sensed, worked out, assumed, told. Sorting each reason into one of those bins is the whole puzzle; the verb ending then follows from the bin.

long; prefix; pieces

HintHow vowels are counted, how language names begin, and whether doer-you and done-to-you look alike.

The whyThree things that catch English-trained eyes. Vowel length can decide a rule as much as syllable count does. A fixed piece on every language name is a free clue to every other language name. And a puzzle that has two forms of 'you' is not being inconsistent — one is the doer, the other the done-to.

A regional variety

HintThink 'bairn' in Aberdeen and 'child' in Brighton.

The whyA dialect is a form of a language used in one region or community, with its own words and sometimes its own grammar. In a puzzle both dialect words are equally valid, and both must obey your rule.