Language quiz
Here’s a multilingual ingredients list from a packet of dried pineapples I bought while in the Czech Republic. How of the languages on it can you recognise?
As we haven’t had any language quizzes for a while, I thought it was time for one. Also, I’m off to London this evening for a class in Irish Songs and Singing at the Hammersmith Irish Centre, so don’t really have time to write a longer post. I’ll be going to the class every Tuesday for the next 10 weeks and am really looking forward to it.
13 Responses to “Language quiz”
goofy on 18 Sep 2007 at 4:54 pm #
Czech, Croatian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Bulgarian?
Polly on 18 Sep 2007 at 5:18 pm #
1
2
3
4 Romanian, most likely.
5
6 - It’s not russian (too many hard signs), so it must be Bulgarian. Plus, it says “Bulgaria.” :)
I can’t tell the difference between non-Russian slavic languages!
Despite the expectation, I don’t think there’s any Hungarian since all the non-ingredient words are related and (mostly) slavic.
Cyrillic is a lot easier to read than funkified Latin.
I see that I’m not the only one who studies food labels for language content. I get most of my Arabic and Greek reading practice from near eastern grocery stores.
Daydreamer on 18 Sep 2007 at 6:02 pm #
I’d go with goofy. Since #1 and #5 are almost identical, they must be Czech and Slovak - or vice versa.
suchosch on 18 Sep 2007 at 6:49 pm #
#1 is Czech, #5 is Slovak. but it’s not fair from me, because i’m native Czech :)
Halabund on 18 Sep 2007 at 7:37 pm #
Simon, you should have censored the address of the distributors. It is too easy if you can read Zagreb, Bucuresti, Sofia …
Ben on 18 Sep 2007 at 7:42 pm #
1 is Czech or Slovak, nobody else has ň. If suchosch says Czech, I’m going to assume Czech
2 is Croatian (it actually says “Hrvatska” on it)
3 is Polish (it has ł)
4 is Romanian (it has ă, plus it says “România” for the importer. One would assume a Romanian importer would be importing into Romania)
5 is Czech or Slovak for the same reason as 1. Again, I’ll believe suchosch on this one. Slovak.
6 is Bulgarian, on account of the ъ in vowel positions.
Ben on 18 Sep 2007 at 7:43 pm #
By the way, are these dried pineapple bits?
Chibi on 18 Sep 2007 at 10:36 pm #
Well, everyone else has guessed all the answers already, so I’ll say something that’s kind of random but still pertains to the OP…
I may be weird, but I enjoy these labels that have multiple languages on them (and am upset that we don’t have them in the US…). I bought a bottle of water in Kreuzberg (a district of Berlin that has a large Muslim population), and the label has the ingredients and stuff in an interesting mix of languages (in this order): Turkish, English, German, Danish, Dutch, Arabic. I also have a bag of chips with German, English, Portuguese, Czech, Greek, Polish, Hungarian and Romanian.
I suppose I’m just not used to labels only having English (and maybe Spanish)…
Jonathan K on 18 Sep 2007 at 11:11 pm #
Slovak (Czech d’s don’t have any forms with diacritics)
Croatian
Polish
Romanian
Czech
Bulgarian
Chibi on 18 Sep 2007 at 11:33 pm #
@Jonathan K: yes, but Slovak doesn’t have any u-rings (see the third+fourth words of the second line in the first language) or r-haceks. I don’t think any of the d’s have diacritics, it could just be the quality of the image.
Ben on 19 Sep 2007 at 4:22 am #
Actually, if you buy any auto parts, they’ve almost always got English, Spanish, and French, at least (in the US, that is)
prase on 19 Sep 2007 at 9:15 am #
@Jonathan K: Czech d’s obviously have form with diacritics (háček): Ď ď. However there are not present on the image.
Simon on 19 Sep 2007 at 7:27 pm #
The languages are: 1. Czech, 2. Croatian, 3. Polish, 4. Romanian, 5. Slovak, 6. Bulgarian. goofy got it right.