The Language Lover's Puzzle Book

100 wonder-filled word puzzles that thrill and tantalize with the beauty, magic, and weirdness of world language
Whether you're a crossword solver, cryptogram fan, Scrabble addict, or Sudoku savant, The Language Lover's Puzzle Book is guaranteed to tease your brain and twist your tongue. Puzzle master Alex Bellos begins in Japan, where we can observe some curious counting:

boru niko = two balls

tsuna nihon = two ropes

uma nito = two horses

kami nimai = two sheets of paper

ashi gohon = five legs

ringo goko = five apples

sara gomai = five plates

kaba goto = five hippos


Now, how do the Japanese say "nine cucumbers"?*


a) kyuri kyuhon

b) kyuri kyuko

c) kyuri kyuhiki

d) kyuri kyuto

Bellos finds the intrigue-and the human element-in a dizzying array of ancient, modern, and even invented tongues, from hieroglyphs to Blissymbolics, Danish to Dothraki. Filled with unusual alphabets, fascinating characters, and intriguing local customs for time-telling, naming children, and more, this is a bravura book of brainteasers and beyond-it's a globe-trotting, time-traveling celebration of language.


*The word endings depend on shape: Flat things end in -mai and spherical things end in -ko. Cucumbers are long things (like ropes and legs), so they end in -hon. The answer is (a)!