PREFACE

Hi everyone!

I'm Nitya, currently an 11th-grade student in

Bangalore.

A year ago, I had little idea what linguistics

was. Then a senior of mine recommended
that I participate in the National Linguistics
Olympiad. There I discovered that linguistics
is actually a world of its own: filled with
exciting ideas, concepts and mysteries! As a
finalist, I was excited to participate in the
next level and learn even more, but then
covid-19 struck and everything was
cancelled.

So I decided to write this book about

linguistics, with a detailed deep-dive into the
field and lots of puzzles that I created myself!
This book is for all the young minds to learn
about linguistics! Hopefully after reading this
book, you will find this field as interesting as
I do!

Enjoy understanding computational

linguistics through puzzles!
 INTRODUCTION
Welcome to an understanding linguistics
and computational linguistics through
puzzles!

This book covers a variety of topics,

including the different fields involved in
computational linguistics, its uses and
applications. You will learn about what
computational linguists study, what they
work on, and even what the future of
linguistics holds.

You also get to see how linguistics actually

works! This book contains 15+ exciting new
linguistics puzzles in different languages
with hints and detailed explanations found
nowhere else. 

And at the end, if you'd like to learn even

more, there links to even more amazing
resources!

Happy reading and solving!

 4 INTRODUCTION
7 WHERE IT'S USED
14 HOW CL WORKS
19 DIFFERENT FIELDS
27 COMP. LINGUISTS
43 THE FUTURE OF CL
CONTENTS

45 TIPS TO GET STARTED

46 MORE PUZZLES
78 COMPETITIONS 
80 LINKS
81 WHAT'S NEXT?
TABLE OF

82 THANK YOU!
 01

INTRODUCTION
LINGUISTICS

"The scientific study

of languages"

It involves the study of the way meaning is

created from sound. Linguists explore the
connection between different languages,
study the factors that influence language
to change and help us better understand
this tool for commincation.

In simple terms, a
linguist is a language
scientist
 SO WHAT IS?

COMPUTATIONAL
LINGUSTICS
Computational simply means relating
to computers or involving some
mathematical calculations

Computational linguistics is the scientific study

of language from a computational perspective.
 
This means that people who work in this field
aim to find computational or mathematical
models for natural languages.
These models describe different features of
languages such as the way words are arranged
to form meaningful sentences and even
connections between different languages.

How is this done? Before we delve into the how

of this process, let’s take a broader look at
where these models are used and understand
their exciting applications in the real world!
 Google Home
Alexa Searching, 
Siri communicating with
and more humans and more

NATURAL
LANGUAGE
TRANSLATION PROCESSING

MT
(Machine WHERE IS
Translation)
IT USED?
ROBOTS

Futuristic
ARTIFICIAL human-like
INTELIGENCE devices
KPIs

In devices that can

think intelligently,
similar to humans:
to process and
learn languages
 HOW DID THIS FIELD
ARISE?
COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS OVER THE YEARS

Computational linguistics first started in the

1950s in the USA. People wanted to use
computers to automatically translate Russian
into English.

Since computers could perform math

calculations much faster than humans, they
thought, why not use them to translate
languages?

But this failed to produce accurate translations.

They then realized that human languages are
much more complex than they thought.

And that's how computational linguistics was

born! At first, its aim was to develop simple
computer software that
could process
languages. But today, it
has grown to have large
applications in the
world of technology!
USES OF COMPUTATIONAL
LINGUSTICS NOW
What is computational linguistics (CL) used for
today?

First its original purpose: Translation. Can you

think of any popular translating softwares?
Google Translate, and many other translating
tools use machine translation, a sub-field of
CL. Because of advanced CL, these softwares
can quite accurately translate words and
sentences from one language to another.

But what else is CL used for?

After many years, CL is not just for translation.
It now helps in developing intelligent softwares
that can process human languages. This has
led to huge breakthroughs allowing humans to
directly communication with machines using
different languages...

Did you ever wonder how

Siri, Google Home and
Alexa can understand what
you say and follow the
directions you speak?
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
& NLP
Natural language processing (NLP) is one of
the applications of CL!

It's the technology that allows computers to

understand human natural language and give
responses to it.

For example, when you say, "Hey Alexa, play

'XYZ' music," it plays the music you ask for.
Even though the computer only understands
binary language, (which is the language made
of 1s and 0s), NLP allows it to understand your
voice in human English language and convert
it to the computer language!

NLP is used in many artifically intelligent

devices. Artificial intelligence is simply a field
which aims to make computer devices behave
intelligently, similar to humans. And of course,
if you want to make a device intelligent like
humans it has to be able to recognize and talk
in human language! Computer scientists make
this possible using NLP.
 CL & NLP

How does computational linguistics actually

make NLP possible?

In CL, linguists study and model language and

different words together form meaning.
By studying this, they can then think about
how computers might be able to understand
that meaning. The models they create for
languages are then used to create code for
software that understands human languages!

They can then write algorithms that take

human language as input, understand it, and
produce human language as output. These
algorthirms allow Siri, Google Home, Alexa
and other artifically intelligent devices to
communicate with us!

So the next time you say, "Hey, Alexa" or "Hey

Siri" or "Ok Google", you can tell everyone
how CL is making this possible!
S O, HOW D OES C OM P U T A T IONA L
LING U S T IC S A P P LY T O?

ROBOTS
WHAT ARE ROBOTS?

What do you think qualifies as a robot? Robots

are machines that can do human like tasks by
themselves and make decisions by themselves!
This can include cleaning robots, or robots that
can build things, or robots that can help in
medical procedures like surgeries or like the
Mars Rover- robots which go to places humans
cannot and collect information!

For a long time, technology has also been

working towards building more advanced
robots that look, feel, and act more like humans.

And what would be a big

part of this mission to make
machines that think like
humans?
Being able to communicate
with humans and
recognizing language!
CL and NLP will play a huge role in such
futuristic innovations! Making robots that
understand multiple languages, and even
complex or incomplete sentences are just
some areas where NLP applies!

EVEN MORE FUTURISTIC

Another question that scientists have been

asking is- what else could robots do, if we
make them think like humans?
What do you think? What else could robots do
when it comes to languages?

Maybe, they could learn new languages the

same way humans can! This idea has
fascinated researchers for years.
And to achieve this,
computational linguistics,
especially modeling and
understanding how
language is learnt is
extremely important!
 02
HOW 

COMPUTATIONAL
LINGUSTICS
ACTUALLY WORKS

T H E DI F F E R E N T F I E L D S
I N V OLV E D
 LET'S SEE HOW
LINGUISTICS
ACTUALLY WORKS
WITH A SIMPLE PUZZLE!

Bulgarian Countries

Bulgarian is a South Slavic language

spoken in Southeastern Europe, primarily
in Bulgaria as well as other minority
groups around the world. Given below are
the names of three countries in Bulgarian.

Japan. Япония
India. Индия
Australia. Австралия

What are the names of these two

countries in English?

Аржентина
България
 HOW DO WE SOLVE THIS?
Found the answers? See the next page to find
out if you're right!

Let's go through how we can approach this

problem!
We can immediately see that the Bulgarian
translation for Japan has more letters than 5.
This means that in Bulgarian, Japan is probably
spelled differently.
If countries are spelled differently, we don't
know for sure which letter corresponds to
which. But one way we could find out for sure is
to see which letters are common between the
countries!
For example in India, Индия, И repeats twice.
So we can assume that this stands for 'i', which
is the only letter in India that repeats twice. Also
н is present in Japan as well, only once, but not
in Australia, so it is safe to assume that it means
'n'.
Next, since the transaltions for India and Australia,
have the same number of letters as the english
word, we can try to fill in some of the gaps:

Now we can move on to the questions! Using the

letters we know we can find:

Knowing these letters, the obvious full names

could be Argentina and Bulgaria!

Some additional information

There are some differences in the letters, for
example, the g in Bulgaria and Argentina does not
match. 
This is actually because in Bulgarian, Argentina is
spelled as Arzhentina. And Japan
is spelled as Japoniya,
я actually stands for 'ya', which
most country names in Bulgaria,
such as Indiya and Australiya end with.
But even without this information, we were able to
solve the puzzle and come up with the country
names!
 HOW IT WORKS
What did you just do?
You just used math and logic to find
connections between different languages.
This is one part of what computational
linguistics involves! As we go higher and
higher in the field, these connections,
languages and words become more
complex (as we will see in future puzzles)
and need people who are experts in many
different fields to solve them!

WHAT ELSE DOES

CL APPLY?
 LOGIC

COMPUTER LINGUISTICS
SCIENCE

AN
INTERSECTION
OF DIFFERENT
FIELDS

COGNITIVE
MATHEMATICS
SCIENCE

PHILOSOPHY
Of course, computational linguistics involves
the scientific study of languages. What's
unique in CL, is that it's studied using
mathematical models! This way of
scientifically studying languages is what
enables computational linguists to make
computer programs smart enough to
understand them. Speaking of computer
programs:

LINGUSITICS

HOW IT APPLIES

COMPUTER SCIENCE

How do computer scientists and

computational linguists write programs for
devices like Siri and Alexa?
They use different programming languages
such as Java and C++. Computer science has a
big role in creating these algorithms that can
recognize speech and talk to humans!
 MATHEMATICS

Ever heard that Mathematics is closely

inter-related with computer science? It's
true! Maths is used to write many
computer programs related to CL. But
not only this. Remember, we talked
about CL as mathematically
modelling languages. Maths is used to
understand connections between
languages, their structure and more

LOGIC

Logic, like maths is a huge part of

computer science and any form of
modelling. Anything scientific,
including computational lingusitics
involves applying logic, like you used
while solving the last puzzle!
 HOW DOES IT APPLY?

PHILOSOPHY

What is philosophy?
You might've heard this word before.
Philosophy is a way of understanding the
world. It studies human thought, the universe,
knowledge and more fundmental questions.

Philosophy of language explores things such

as how we get meaning from language.
This is useful in computational linguistics,
especially when we consider making robots
intelligent enough to completely understand
the meaning of language. 

Philosophy of linguistics explores how

accurate methods of studying linguistics are. It
also studies the relationship between the
theoretical
models and actual data
to find out how much
theory actually applies
to the languages
in real.
 HOW DOES IT APPLY?

COGNITIVE SCIENCE
WITH

NEURO-SCIENCE

Remember we mentioned that in

future, robots might be made smart
enought to learn languages?

Cognitive science might just make that

possible! How?
Cognitive scientists study the way
children and adults learn new
languages. They model the different
ways in which human brains learn to
understand languages. And recently,
some of those models have
even begun to be tested on
robots, to see if they can
learn languages in the
same way too!
A COLLABORATIVE
APPROACH:

Much research in today’s world is done

collaboratively. While doing research,
especially in the field of artificial
intelligence pertaining to human-like
robots, computational linguistics often
collaboratively work with people from all
these fields- philosophy, cognitive
scientists, neuroscientists, logicians,
mathematicians, computer scientists and
linguists.

While developing complex softwares for

different uses, computational linguists often
work in teams with
engineers, programmers
as well as other
computational
linguists!
 UP

We find out more about how and

where computational linguists work
and what it takes to become one!

BUT BEFORE THAT,

TRY THIS PUZZLE

SOLUTION IN THE NEXT
CHAPTER
THE PUZZLE:
This puzzle has to do with the way meaning is
constructed from language- which is another
important part of computational linguistics.

Here are some sentences where the adjectives

have been replaced with fake words:
a. Jane is zilly and klain.
b. The dance was milly and xind.
c. Kyle’s dog is brazy but zilly.
d. Even though vintic, John is hanter.
e. Carla is klain but halty.
f. Zeeful and talb, the music was a pleasure to
listen to. 
g. John is halty but zeeful.
h. Even though talb, the movie was marg.
i. The restaurant was milly and not hanter.

Which of the following sentences would you be

likely to hear?
1. Alice is zeeful but brazy.
2. The painting was talb and marg.
3. Even though xind, Hans is hanter.

SOLUTION IN THE NEXT CHAPTER

 03
A L L AB O U T  

COMPUTATIONAL
LINGUISTS

F I N D O U T A B O U T T H E P E OPLE
WHO W O R K I N T H I S F I E L D
 FIRST, THE SOLUTION
TO THE LAST PUZZLE
In case you didn't get it, I'll give you some hints!

This is a classic example of what we call

polarity between words. What does this
mean?

1 Some words will have similar meanings,

while some are opposite. We can start by
diving the words into positives and
negatives.
From sentence f, we know that zeeful and talb
are positive words. So we add them to our
positives list.
If zeeful is positive, from sentence g we know
that halty is negative. If talb is positive, from
sentence h, we know that marg is negative. If
halty is negative, we know from sentence e that
klain is positive.
Going on like this, we get this list:
STEP Now onto the question, since zeeful
and brazy are in opposite lists, we
2 know that sentence 1 makes sense.
Talb and marg have opposite
meanings, but they are used with ‘and’,
so sentence 2 is wrong.

STEP Sentence 3 is a bit harder. From

sentence i we know that milly and

3 hanter have opposite meanings. From

sentence b, we also know that milly and
xind have similar meanings.

Our list is:

milly hanter
xind
Therefore we can see that xind and hanter will
have opposite meanings. So, sentence 3 also
makes sense!

THE ANSWER:
Sentence 1 and 3 are
correct!
ENJOYED THAT?
What you just used to solve the puzzle
is the kind of logic computational
linguists and computer scientists
often use in their work. 

Many linguists love solving

puzzles such as these and use this
skill while writing programs. At a
higher level in computational
linguistics, these puzzles get more
and more complex. That is why
logical and thinking abilities are
neccessary to become a good
computational linguist, or for any
related field.

WANT TO TRY MORE

COMPLICATED PUZZLES?
KEEP READING
B U T FIRST,

WHAT DO
COMPUTATIONAL
LINGUISTS STUDY?

COMPUTER
LINGUISTICS
SCIENCE

SOFTWARE
MATHEMATICS
DEVELOPMENT

SPEAKING ONE
FOREIGN DATA
LANGUAGE + ANALYSIS
ENGLISH
 THE RIGHT SKILLS
Building up the right skills is important for
computational linguists! What kinds of skills do
you think they might need?

To program computers and devices to process

and create language, they need to have a good
knowledge of computer science. While studying
computer science, they also learn about artificial
intelligence which is important in their work.
Computational linguists often use programming
languages such as Java and C++ to develop
software dealing with human speech. This makes
software development another good skill to
have.
Besides these, they study linguistics, or the
connections between different languages! Many
of them also become fluent in more than one
language, which helps them better understand
how languages work.

They then usually specialise in

computational linguistics and
study the intersection of
technology ad languages in
their further studies or masters degrees.
PUZZLE #3:
LEVEL: EASY

Samoan Translation Match!

Samoan, is the language of the Samoan
Islands and the first language for their
population of about 246,000 people.
The first set has some Salmoan sentences. The
second set is their English translations in the
wrong order Match the English sentences to the
correct translations!

1. solofanua tamoe i le malae

2. ua maua e le tagata faifaiva le iʻa
3. Jane kuka meaai
4. e sisiva i luga o le tulaga
5. Sa latou sisiva i le po atoa
6. na ia maua le polo
7. o iʻa e aau i totonu o le vai
8. Jane tietie i luga o se solofanua

A. He caught the ball

B. The fisherman catches the fish.
C. The fish swims in the water
D. They danced all night
E. Jane rides on a horse
F. She dances on the stage
G. Jane cooked food
H. Horses run in the field
SOLVED IT?
IF YOU DIDN'T, HERE ARE SOME HINTS:

HINT 1: First, we know that one word is the

same in both languages, which is the word Jane.
So we know that sentences 3 and 8 correspond
to either of sentences E and G. One of them has
two unique words, ‘cook’ and ‘food’. The other
has the word ‘horse’ which also repeats in
another sentence. Which word appears in
sentence 3 and 8 and also in another sentence?
It's 'solofanua'

HINT 2: So now we’ve matched 3 sentences: 3

to G, 8 to E and 1 to H. Now we look at the rest
of the sentences. Sentences B and C have the
word fish in common, and sentences A and B
have the word catch/ caught in common. Which
3 sentences could match with this?

HINT 3: If you matched sentence 7 with C; 2

with B and 6 with A, you’re right!  iʻa in Samoan
means fish and maua, means catch! Now we
have two sentences left, D and F. Sentence F
says ‘on the stage’. Do we know another
sentence that has on? 
THE SOLUTION
FINAL HINT: We can see that sentence E,
which corresponds to sentence 8 also has the
word on. And sentences 4 and 8 have the
words ‘luga o’ in common which means on! So
sentence 4 and F match. And you know the
remaining one!

THE FINAL ANSWER:

REMEMBER: Like with all things, logic

skills can be built with practice!
Don't believe it? Try the next puzzle! It's
equally hard, but I bet you'll find it easier!
WHERE DO COMPUTATIONAL
LINGUISTS WORK?
Many big tech companies hire computational
lingustics to work in their NLP (natural language
processing) department or artificial intelligence
departments. They work on projects such as
Siri, Alexa, etc. as well as other softwares
dealing with recognising human speech!

Computational linguists are also part of a

variety of research at tech companies. They
research how more advanced softwares for
language recognition can be built in the future.

Universities also sponsor a variety of research in

this field. Some computational linguists study
deeper connections between
languages. This helps more
advanced softwares to be
developed. Many work
on research on future
artificially intelligent
robots and giving them
language learning and
speaking abilities.
SOME COMPANIES THAT HIRE
COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTS

COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTS ALSO

CONDUCT RESERACH AT ALMOST ALL
MAJOR UNIVERSITIES!
PUZZLE #4:
L EV EL: E A S Y

Japanese Braille
Braille is a system of touch reading and writing
for blind persons in which raised dots represent
the letters of the alphabet. Japanese Braille is the
braille script of the Japanese language. In Japanese
it is known as tenji, meaning "dot characters".

Here are two words written in Japanese Braille:

karate:  ⠡⠑⠟
samurai: ⠱⠽⠑⠃

Here are three Japanese Braille words. Not in

order, they are teriyaki (a style of food), anime
(cartoons) and kimono (a Japanese dress). Can
you match which one is which?

1.⠁⠇⠿ _______ 2. ⠟⠓⠌⠣  _______

3. ⠣⠾⠎  _______

Next, write the following two words in Japanese

Braille:
1. sumo: 
2. yukata:
THE SOLUTION
Found the answer? Click here to check it:
And if not, start here:

Look at the length of the words first. How

many boxes are there in each word?

Got it? It's the same as the number of

syllables in that word! So karate, which has 3
syllables (ka, ra, te) has a Braille word which
is 3 boxes long.
Now we can assume that:
⠡ means ka, ⠑ means ra and ⠟ means te.

Simillarly for the word samurai, the four

syllables would be 'sa', 'mu', 'ra' and 'i'. Each
box means those syllables. We can also be
sure of this because 'ra' in both words, is the
same!

Now that we have understood the logic

behind the two example words, let's look at
the puzzle where we have to match the
english words with Braille.
THE SOLUTION
The three words are teriyaki, anime and
kimono.

From the two example words, we know that 'te'

is ⠟. So teriyaki would be the word which starts
with ⠟, which is word number 2.
Now we know that ⠟⠓⠌⠣ means te/ri/ya/ki.

From there, we know that ki means ⠣. So

kimono, would be the word that starts with ⠣,
which is word number 3. And finally, anime
would be word number 1!

The next part is a bit harder! Now, you actually

need to understand in detail how the language
works.

Let's start with sumo. We don't know how to

write 'su' in Braille. We know that sa is ⠱. But
how do we write 'u'. Are there any syllables
words with the letter 'u'? We know that mu is ⠽.
Now from ⠽ or mu, we want to know which
part stands for 'm' and which part for 'u'. How
do we do this?
THE SOLUTION
We could compare it to another syllable with
the letter 'm'. We know from the words in the
first part of the puzzle that 'mo' is ⠾ and 'me' is
⠿. What is common in 'mu', 'mo' and 'me'?

⠽⠾⠿
We can see that ⠴ is common in all.
Let's compare some more syllables that we
know. Such as 'ka' and 'ki':
⠡⠣
We can see that the bottom right dot is
common in all. What if we compare 'ra' and 'ri'?
⠑⠓
What's common in this? The middle right dot. So
can we assume that stands for 'r'? What about
'ka' and 'ra'? They have the top left dot in
common. So can we assume that stands for 'a'?
Do you start to see the pattern. We know that
'sa' is ⠱, and 'a' is ⠁. So 's' must be the bottom
two right dots. And from 'mu', we know that 'u'
is ⠉. So 'su' must be ⠹. 

Similarly we can solve what 'ya' means in yakata!

 THE ANSWERS!

Part 1:
1.⠁⠇⠿  is  anime
2. ⠟⠓⠌⠣  is teriyaki
3. ⠣⠾⠎ is kimono

Part 2:
1. sumo: ⠹⠾
2. yukata: ⠬⠡⠕
WHAT WILL COMPUTATIONAL
LINGUISTS WORK ON IN THE

FUTURE?
Think about all the new apps and devices that are
coming up that use artificial intelligence. Devices
like Fitbits might use voice control in the future.
Watches that can use voice control to tell you the
weather or read your messages! Automated
chatbots that can help you out with anything!

Artificial intelligence is being used more and more

and CL goes hand in hand. As many more devices
and apps use communication through voice,
computational linguists will be working on creating
these! Many major technology companies such as
Google, have announced plans to make their
voice-user interfaces more advanced.
Computational linguists, especially those working
in natural language processing will have a huge
role in this. 

Research in AI, especially towards robots, is also

moving fast. As we attempt to create robots that
can function intelligently like humans, 
which includes language, the work
of computational linguists is
essential in experimenting and
researching how this can be achieved!
WANT TO GET
INVOLVED?
If all of this excites you and
you’ve been enjoying the puzzles so far,
sounds like you might be the perfect fit to
become a computational linguist!
You could work on on one of these new
exciting projects in the future!

SOME MORE SIGNS THIS MIGHT

BE GREAT FOR YOU!
Are you passionate about computers
and programming?
Do you love solving puzzles and logic
questions? 
Are you excited about artificial
intelligence and making machines as
smart as humans?
Or do new languages fascinate you?

If the answer to any or some of these

questions is yes, looks like CL is a
perfect match!
SOME TIPS TO GET
STARTED!
Want to learn more about
computational lingusitics? Or explore your
interest further? Here are some ideas to get
started!

Learn to code! There are some great

courses avaliable online on Coursera and
Udemy. You can also try to find a local
coding class. Coding is a lot of fun to
learn and a great way to build problem
solving skills. You can start by creating
apps, websites and more!

Solve all our puzzles in the next section!

They're great fun and will give you a
head-start into what problem solving.

Stay tuned for links to some awesome

competitions you can enter at the end of
the book!
 04
MORE

PUZZLES

HAVE FUN AGAINST THE BEST

OF THE BEST CHALLENGES
PUZZLE #5:
LEV EL: E A S Y
Random Romanian Numbers
Romanian is a Balkan Romance language
spoken by about 26 million people as a
native language. Here are some numbers
in English and their translations in Romanian
in random order. 'And' is represented by &.
Match each phrase with its translation!

Translate the following into Romanian:

ten and eighteen:
seventy- three and sixteen:
HINTS
Have you tried the problem and are still
confused about where to start? Read these
hints one by one and go back to the puzzle!
Maybe these will help you find the right
approach to solve it!

Look at the numbers in common

1 between some of the sentences.
Which translations have the same
numbers in the same place?

Bigger numbers such as sixty-three

2 and fifty-four are likely to have longer

translations compared to a simple
number, like six or five.

3 Numbers made 
from the same root
number, such as 7 and
17 or 6 and 60 will
probably have some
connection or similar
sounding number
names.
THE SOLUTION
The matched translations:

Part 2 answers:
ten and eighteen:
zece & optsprezece

seventy- three and sixteen:

șaptezeci și trei & șaisprezece
R E AD Y T O J U M P U P A LE VEL?
PUZZLE #6:
LEV E L: M E D I U M
Azerbaijani is a Turkic language spoken mainly
by Azerbaijani people in the Republic of Azerbaijan.
The table below contains some english words, their
Azerbaijani translations and plurals. Complete the
table!

ENGLISH SINGULAR PLURAL

HOW TO SOLVE IT #6
Different languages have different rules for
singular and plural items. For example, in
English, sometimes we add ‘s’ (such as
apples), or if the word already ends with ‘s’,
we add ‘es’ (such as buses) etc.

It takes some trial and error to figure out

these rules in each language, but if you look
at the table, you should be able to find the
pattern.
Words in Azerbaijani are made plural by
adding either -lar or -lər as a suffix. (A suffix
is a set of letters added to the end of a
word).
Which suffix is added depends on the last
vowel in the word.

If the last vowel in the word is a, o, or u, we

add -lar [Such as in telefon]

If the last vowel in the word is e, ə, or i, we

add -lər [Such as in qeyd]
 SOLUTION #6

Here is the completed table:

ENGLISH SINGULAR PLURAL
 PUZZLE #7:
LEVEL: MEDIUM
Tenses, verbs and objects in
Hausa
Hausa is a language spoken by the
Hausa people who are the largest ethnic
group in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The table below has some Hausa sentences
and their English translations. Can you complete
the table?

HAUSA ENGLISH
#7
SOLVED IT?
IF YOU DIDN'T, HERE ARE SOME HINTS

One of the main things to note in this puzzle,

is tense. Look at what's common between all
the English sentences is future tense (will do
or will go). The Hausa word 'za' is added in
those sentences.

Next is the prepositions. To, at and in. What is

common between all the sentences that have
these words? We can see that to is
represented by 'tafi' and at or in by 'a'.

The subjects and objects are simple. You can

easily find the words for girls, women, they,
home and school.

The last thing is the order of the sentence.

We can see that's it actually the same
as English- subject, verb, object.
Now that you have all the
pieces, you can start solving!
SOLUTION #7

THE COMPLETED TABLE

HAUSA ENGLISH
PUZZLE #8: LEVEL: MEDIUM

Greek Shifts!
Greek, native to Greece, Cyprus, and other parts
of the Mediterranean, is the longest documented
Indo-European language. Below are some Greek
phrases with their English translations.

GREEK ENGLISH

How would you write the following phrases in

Greek?
1. the word of the books:
2. the bell in the houses
What are these phrases in English?
A. ta scholeía tis pólis
B. ta trapézia sta scholeía
 HOW TO SOLVE IT #8
To start, you can highlight the common words
between each sentence, like this:

This will help you identify what each word

means.

Pay attention to the things like differences

between singular and plurals. What's the
difference between house and houses? School
and school? Glass and glasses?

Look at the different prepositions as well- of, in,

on, which word means which?
SOLUTION #8

English phrases in Greek:

1. the word of the books:

Answer: i léxi ton vivlíon

2. the bell in the houses

Answer: to koudoúni sta spítia

Greek phrases in English

1. ta scholeía tis pólis

Answer: The schools in the city

2. ta trapézia sta scholeía

Answer: the tables in the schools

Additional information: The difference in 'the'

in each of the phrases is actually beacuse of
the different subjects. In greek, different
articles are used for singluar & plural and
feminine, masculine and neutral subjects.
PUZZLE #9:
LEVEL: MEDIUM
Turkish Nouns
The table below has some Turkish phrases and
their English translations. Can you complete the
table?
TURKISH ENGLISH
 SOLUTION #9
The completed table:
HOW WE SOLVE IT #9:

This is a question that needs some close

attention to detail. First, look at singulars
and plurals. What is added to a word to
make it plural?
It's -lar or -ler. -lar is added if the last vowel
in the root word is 'a', and -ler is added if
the last vowel in the root word is 'e'.

The next part is simple. What's the

difference between 'in' and 'to'?

For in, you add 'da' or 'de' and for to, you
add 'a' to the root. And vice-versa, to find
the root word, we remove 'da' or 'a'.

Now that we know these

simple rules, we
can easily fill in
the table!
PUZZLE #10:
LEVEL: MEDIUM
Hmong Family Members
Hmong is one of the many languages spoken by
the Hmong people in China, Vietnam, Laos,
Myanmar and Thailand. Here are some family
relationships described in Hmong.

ENGLISH HMONG

How would you write these sentences in Hmong?

A. He has three older sisters
B. Mark has no brothers

Below are 3 sentences. Which one of these is

 false?
1. Jacob muaj tug kwv yau.
2. Rachel muaj plaub nim laus.
3. Mark tsis muaj kwvtij
SOLUTION #10
English to Hmong:

A. He has three older sisters:

Nws muaj peb nim laus.

B. Mark has no brothers:

Mark tsis muaj kwvtij

Which sentences are false?

1.Jacob muaj tug kwv yau means:

Jacob has one younger brother.

2. Rachel muaj plaub nim laus:

Rachel has four older sisters.

3. Mark tsis muaj kwvtij:

Mark has no brothers.

Sentence 2 is false, as one of the sentences

in the question says that Rachel has no
sisters!
PUZZLE #10:
LEVEL: MEDIUM

Basque Subjects and Objects

Basque is a language spoken in the Basque

Country in westernmost Pyrenees, Northern
Spain and Southwestern France. It's uniqueness
is that it’s linguistically unrelated to the other
languages of Europe. Still, we can find some
connections in this puzzle:

Given below are some English sentences and

their Basque sentences in random order. Can
you match the correct translations?

What do these sentences mean in English?

1. Katuak ikusten zaitu

2. Katua ikusten duzu eta korrika
#10
THE SOLUTION
How to solve it?
Again, start by highlighting the common
words and parts of words. you'll see that
adding 'zu' at the end means 'you', run
stands for korrika egiten and see is ikusten.
Cat is Katua. The language structure in
Basque is quite unique: the verb comes first
and the subject at the end!

The matched translations:

The translated sentences:

1. The cat sees you
2. You the cat and run
LEVEL UP
PUZZLE #12:
L E V EL: D I F F I C U L T 1

Sudanese Math
Given below are a list of mathematical statements
in Sudanese. For example: three plus three
equals six. None of the numbers represent zero.

hiji tambah hiji sarua dua

hiji dikalikeun ku hiji sarua hiji
dua tambah dua sarua opat
sapuluh kabagi ku lima sarua dua
lima dikurangan dua sarua tilu
sapuluh tambah lima sarua lima belas
genep belas dikurangan opate sarua dua belas
tujuh tambah tujuh belas sarua dua puluh opat

Solve the following and write the answers in

Sudanase:
genep kabagi ku tilu
tujuh dikalikeun ku lima
opat puluh dua dikurangan genep belas
#12
SOLVED IT?
IF YOU DIDN'T, HERE'S HOW TO START:

Since we don't have any words translated, this is a

slightly hard puzzle. But we can apply some logic.

First thing, sarua is repeated in all sentences, so

we can assume this means equal to. Since there
are four words used as the 2nd word in all the
sentences- (tambah, dikalikeun ku, kabagi ku and
dikurangan), we can assume that these stand for
the mathematical operations (plus, minus,
multiplication and division). So the rest of the
words stand for numbers.

Sentence two has all three numbers as hiji. The

only simple mathematical operation without 0,
that has all three numbers the same is 1
multiplied by 1 is equal to 1.

So we can assume that hiji means one and

dikalikeun ku stands for multiplied by (and ku
stands for by).

Can you find out the meaning of sentence 1 and 3

now?
#12
Now coming back to sentence 1, we know that
tambah is either plus or minus (it does not have
the word ku or by, so it cannot be multiplied by
or divided by). 1 minus 1 would be zero, and the
question says that there are no zeroes. So
tambah must be plus and dua must be two.
Now we can see that sentence 3 means 2+2=4.

Sentence 4 is a bit harder. We know that the

answer is dua or 2. Looking at the numbers, we
can see that they are simple and have only one
word. So we can assume they are between 1 to
10. The possibilities that give dua or 2 as the
answer are 10/5 or 8/4 or 6/3 or 4/2. But 8/4 and
4/2 are not possible as we know that four means
opat, and neitehr of the numbers are opat.

Suppose we say that the numbers are 6 and 3.

Now in sentence 5, we can assume that
dikurangan means minus (since it does not have
the word 'by' and plus is tambah). Now the
sentence would mean 3-2 = tile. But we know
that 3-2=1, and one is hiji. Therefore lima cannot
be 3.

So we know that in sentence 4, sapuluh and lima

are 10 and 5.
#12
Now from sentence 6, we know that lima belas
is 15. Since lima belas is 15, we can assume
that dua belas means 12. 

In sentence 7 we know that genep belas minus

4= 12. So genep belas must be 16, and genep
must be 6. 

Sentence 8 says, tujuh tambah tujuh belas

sarua dua puluh opat.
tujuh could be, 7, 8, or 9 which are the
number we do not know.

The answer ends with opat, which is 4. 

8+18 is 26 and 9+19 is 28, which does not fit.

But if tujuh is 7, 7 +17 = 24, which makes

sense! dua puluh opat would then mean 24.

Now we also know that adding dua puluh

before a number adds 20.
SOLUTION #12
The translated question statements:

And the answers:

PUZZLE #13:
LE V EL: D I F F I C U L T 1
The Family Tree
Given below is a family tree with 5 blank spaces for
Harry, Jill, Ronald, Rachel and Lily.

Shona is the language of the Shona people of

Southern Africa. Some relationships between the
family members are described in Shona below:

Mike ndiye mwanakomana waJane

Ronald ndiye mwanakomana waRachel
Lily ndiye muzukuru waJane
Ronald haasi muzukuru waHarry.
Max ndiye muzukuru waEmily
Emily ndiamai vaJill.
Jill haasi mwanakomana waMike.
Harry haasi baba vaLily
Josefa ndiye tezvara waRachel
Rachel ndiamai vaFelixi
Harry ndiye tezvara waMike

Complete the family tree!

#13
THE SOLUTION
The translated question statements are:

And the completed family tree:

PUZZLE #14:
LE V EL: D I F F I C U L T 1
Nyanja Verbs and Subjects
Nyanja is a language spoken in much of Southern,
Southeast and East Africa. Given below are some
phrases and sentences in English and Nyanja.

How would you write the following

sentences in Nyanja?
1. He spoke to the man’s child:
2. They saw your shoes:
3. I bought the dog’s shoes:
SOLUTION #14
Some of the rules you can find from
looking at the question are:
He/ she/ they are all written by adding 'a'
before the word.
I is written by adding 'ndi'.
And you is written by adding 'mu'

Verbs are easy to find by looking at the

common parts of the sentences with the same
verb. For example, by looking at sentence 7,
and 11, we can tell that saw is written as
'aona'.

Here are the Nyanja translations:

1.He spoke to the man’s child:
Adalankhula mwana wa mwamunayo

2. They saw your shoes:

Adawona nsapato zanu

3. I bought the dog’s shoes:

Ndinagula nsapato za galu
 AND THE FINAL LEVEL....
ARE YOU READY?

PUZZLE #15:
LEV EL: D I F F I C U L T 2
Toki Pona is a language, created by Canadian
linguist Sonja Elen Kisa. It has only 123 main
words representing basic things such a stone or
cloth or a color. More words are made by
combining these 123 main words.
he table below has 10 words in toki pona with
their English translations in random order. Can
you match the right translations?
#15
SOLVED IT?
IF YOU DIDN'T, HERE HOW TO START:
Here's a hint. 'lape' means sleeps. Can you
solve it now?
Like we said in the question, each word in Toki
Pona, is actually made of many basic words. So
a good way to start woud be to make a list of
everything in common between the English
words. 
So for example, poki appears in three of the
words. Which three English words have
something major in common? What’s common
between tiffin box, sleeping bag and
bookshelf? They are all containers for
something. And ‘poki’ in toki pona means
container. 
Now moku poki and moku have ‘moku’ in
common. Which word has something in
common with tiffin box, sleeping bag or
bookshelf? Food and tiffin box. Moku means
food and poki means container. So tiffin box is
actually food container. With the same logic
and some trial and error, we can map out all
the similarities between the words.
SOLUTION #15
Now, we can apply the same logic to other
words, such as 'lape'. Which other three words
have something in common? Dream, sleeping
bag and bed, all have 'sleep' in common.
With the same logic and some trial and error,
we can map out all the similarities between the
words.
WANT TO SOLVE MORE
PUZZLES? HERE ARE SOME
AWESOME

COMPETITIONS
YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN,
WHEREVER YOU ARE!

India:
Panini Linguistics Olympiad
Website: http://ltrc.iiit.ac.in/nlpmt/plo/#/

Ireland
All Ireland Linguistics Olympiad.
Website: https://ailo.adaptcentre.ie/

USA:
North American Computational Linguistics
Olympiad.
Website:https://www.nacloweb.org/

UK:
UK Linguistics Olympiad
Website: https://www.uklo.org/

Spain:
Competición Lingüística de España
Website:https://ole.abumatran.eu/?lang=es
 MORE
COMPETITIONS
Nepal:
Himalayan Linguistic Olympiad
Nepal
Website: https://hlon.org/

Malaysia:
Malaysian Computational Linguistics Olympiad
Website:https://www.myclo.my/

Japan:
IOLing Japan
Website: https://iolingjapan.org/

More countries:
https://ioling.org/local_organizers/
 LINKS
WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT
COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS?
HERE ARE SOME GREAT RESOURCES:

https://linguistics.ucla.edu/undergraduate/what-
is-linguistics/

https://www.linguisticsociety.org/what-linguistics

https://lingclub.mycpanel.princeton.edu/challenge
/puzzles.php

https://ioling.org/problems/samples/

https://www.canil.ca/lingquiz/index_canil.html

https://allthingslinguistic.com/post/83854186351/l
inguistics-challenge-puzzles

https://linguistics.arizona.edu/content/what-
linguistics-and-why-study-it-0

https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/12/teaching-old-virtual-
assistants-new-language-tricks/
WHAT COMES NEXT?

If you can now solve all the puzzles in this

book, congratulations! Hope you enjoyed
the journey into linguistics.

Armed with your introduction to linguistics,

and lots of newly built logical skills, you're
now ready to go out and try more
complicated puzzles and challenges,
whether that be in linguistics, coding, math
or learning a new language! There are lots
of great resources out there, including the
ones on the last page that you can use to
find out more!

Keep learning, reading and exploring! Best

of luck!
 STAY IN TOUCH
You can read my STEM Newspaper for many
interesting science articles and puzzles at:
http://www.vidyaverse.org/newspaper/

We also have a puzzles section at:

http://www.vidyaverse.org/puzzles-page/

For any questions, or comments, please

write to me at vidyaverse@gmail.com.

THANK YOU!

I hope that you've enjoyed understanding

computational linguistics through puzzles
and that you've found a new interest in
learning about this exciting field! If you
liked this book, I hope you'll review it on
Amazon and recommend it to your friends!

Thank you for reading and best of luck on

your future journey to learn!
 REFERENCES
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Computational Linguistics
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computati
onal-linguistics/

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,

Philosophy of Linguistics
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/linguistics/

Caltech.edu, What is Linguistics?
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~matilde/Linguisti
csIntroClass.pdf

Careers, CL,
http://www.cla.csulb.edu/departments/lingui
stics/careers-computational-linguistics/

Study.com, Become a Computational Linguist

https://study.com/articles/Become_a_Compu
tational_Linguist_Career_Roadmap.html
***