UKLO 2014

The hour still to come

提示Is the half being measured from what has passed, or from what is ahead?

为什么Some languages count towards the coming hour rather than past the previous one, so 'half six' means halfway to six and 'quarter six' means a quarter of the way there. In a time puzzle, do not translate 'past' and 'to' word by word: find two clock times in the data, work out which hour each expression is anchored to, and test the rule on a third.

It has no consonant clusters, and syllables end in a vowel or 'n'

提示Say it slowly — which sounds were impossible for a Japanese mouth to run together?

为什么A borrowed word is reshaped to fit the borrower's sound rules. Japanese builds syllables as (consonant +) vowel; the only things that can close one are the nasal 'n' and the first half of a doubled consonant. So 'cr' is split open and a final 'm' or 's' gains a vowel — but English 'pen' stays 'pen', because a final 'n' is already legal. Hawaiian, which allows no final consonant at all, gives 'Kalikimaka' for Christmas. In a loanword puzzle, list what the language never does and apply each ban in turn.

A consonant cluster

提示'strengths' has one at each end.

为什么English piles consonants up; many languages allow none, and a few allow only certain pairs. Loanwords reveal the limits: a cluster gets a vowel inserted between the consonants, or one consonant dropped, so a borrowed English word grows a syllable or loses a letter.

r

提示The sound most like it — made in the same part of the mouth.

为什么When a language lacks a sound, it substitutes the nearest neighbour: l and r swap in Japanese, Korean and several Pacific languages; 'v' becomes 'b' where there is no 'v' (Spanish); 'th' becomes 't' or 's' (French, Japanese). Working out the substitutions from given loanwords lets you predict how a new English word would be borrowed.

A classifier

提示Chinese and Japanese put one between a number and its noun; English 'a sheet of paper' is a faint echo.

为什么Chinese 'three CL book' needs a measure word chosen by the noun's type; English echoes this in 'two cups of tea', 'three head of cattle'. In a classifier puzzle, group the nouns by which little word they take — people, animals, round things, flat things — and describe each group; then note where in the phrase the classifier sits.

A question particle

提示Japanese adds 'ka' to the end of a sentence to ask.

为什么English asks by swapping word order ('Is he here?'); many languages keep the order and add a small word — Japanese 'ka', Polish 'czy' — and in some it lands right after the word being questioned. Spot the particle by comparing a statement with its question form; then use it wherever the English has a question mark.

Assimilation

提示Which of the two sounds moved to suit its neighbour?

为什么In running speech a sound often shifts to match its neighbour: 'n' before 'p' or 'b' becomes 'm', 'd' before 'g' becomes 'g'. That is assimilation. Sounds can also drop out ('hands' losing its 'd'). Transcriptions of fast speech look wrong until you allow for these changes — read them aloud at speed and the words appear.

IPA

提示The letters you'd see beside a dictionary's pronunciation guide.

为什么The International Phonetic Alphabet, from 1888, gives one symbol per sound: [ŋ] for the 'ng' of 'sing', [θ] for the 'th' of 'thin', [ʃ] for 'sh'. Puzzles use it to show how words are really said. Familiar symbols mostly mean what they look like; learn the few odd ones and read the rest aloud.

lips

提示Say 'p', 'b' and 'm' in a mirror and watch what moves.

为什么t, d and n use the tongue-tip behind the teeth; k, g and 'ng' use the back of the tongue. Sounds made in the same place are the ones that swap for each other in fast speech, which is why 'ten' turns into 'tem' before 'pounds'.

Elision

提示Compare the careful and the quick pronunciation — count the consonants in each.

为什么In a run of consonants the middle one often goes: 'next day' → 'nex day', 'hands' → 'hans'. Together with assimilation, elision is why a fast-speech transcription looks nothing like the spelling. Read it aloud at speed: the missing sound is usually a 't' or 'd' squeezed between two other consonants.

nominalisation

提示A doing-word turned into a thing-word.

为什么Some languages nominalise with one small affix and then treat the result like any noun, adding 'my', 'from' or 'at' to it — so 'my arriving' can mean 'that I arrived'. In a puzzle, a verb suddenly wearing noun endings has been nominalised; translate it back into a clause ('when…', 'that…').

last; prepositions; suffix

提示Where the verb sits, what replaces 'from', and how 'my' is expressed.

为什么Read such sentences from the verb backwards, and peel each noun’s endings from right to left — case first, then possessive — because the outermost ending was added last.