I have an old book which I value a great deal. The book is called 200 Problems in Linguistics and Mathematics and only 1,550 copies were printed in 1972. Luckily, a new extended edition just appeared on the web. Both editions are in Russian, so I decided to translate some of the problems into English. Here is a sample:
Problem 1. Here are phrases in Swahili with their English translations:
- atakupenda — He will love you.
- nitawapiga — I will beat them.
- atatupenda — He will love us.
- anakupiga — He beats you.
- nitampenda — I will love him.
- unawasumbua — You annoy them.
Translate the following into Swahili:
- You will love them.
- I annoy him.
Problem 2. You are given words in Swahili: mtu, mbuzi, jito, mgeni, jitu and kibuzi. Their translations in a different order are: giant, little goat, guest, goat, person and large river. Make the correspondence.
Problem 3. In Russian the middle name is the patronymic. Thus, the middle initial is the first letter of the father’s first name. And, as in many languages, the first initial is the first letter of the first name. Here are names of males in a family:
- A.N. Petrov
- B.M. Petrov
- G.K. Petrov
- K.M. Petrov
- K.T. Petrov
- M.M. Petrov
- M.N. Petrov
- N.M. Petrov
- N.K. Petrov
- N.T. Petrov
- T.M. Petrov
Draw the family tree of the Petrovs, given that every father has two sons, the patriarch of the family has four grandsons, and his sons have two grandsons each. Prove that the solution is unique.
Problem 4. In Latvian a noun can be one of two genders; furthermore, adjectives agree with nouns in gender, number and case. You are given phrases in either the nominative or the genitive case with their translations:
- silts ezers — warm lake
- melns lauva — black lion
- liela krāsns — big oven
- lielas jūras — big sea’s
- sarkana ezera — red lake’s
- melna kafija — black coffee
- sarkans putns — red bird
- liela kalna — big mountain’s
- sarkanas lapas — red leaf’s
- sarkana pils — red castle
- liels ezers — big lake
- melna putna — black bird’s
- liela lauvas — big lion’s
- silta jūra — warm sea
- melnas kafijas — black coffee’s
- liels kalns — big mountain
Indicate which words are nouns and which are adjectives. Divide Latvian nouns into two groups, so that each group contains words of the same gender.
Problem 5. The Portuguese language takes its roots from Latin. In this problem modern Portuguese words are written on the left and their roots (in Latin and other languages on the right). All the words on the left belong to one of three classes: ancient borrowing, early borrowing and late borrowing.
- chegar — plicare
- praino — plaine
- plátano — platanum
- chão — planum
- plebe — plebem
- cheio — plenum
- prancha — planche
For every Portuguese word, indicate which class it belongs to. (Note that in Portuguese “ch” is pronounced as “sh”.)
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