Endangered Alphabets: The Quiz

Time for a little light-hearted break, I think.

When I first went on Omniglot.com, I was struck by so many things, among them the number of languages I’d never heard of, and the number of languages that either seemed to have been made up recently for intellectual amusement or seemed to be altogether fictitious.

So with that in mind, I offer you this little quiz. Needless to say, you can find the answers on the Internet very quickly. The aim is for you to try to see how far you can get without cheating (i.e. researching via omniglot, wikipedia, ethnologue, and so on). Here goes:

1. Which of the following are writing systems specifically created for films, TV series, works of fiction, as alternatives to existing scripts, or purely for intellectual amusement?

Arahauvarf

Asha’fru’kretobi

Beadscript

Daedric

Elder Futhark

Elvish

Hexahue

Ishirkian

Klingon

Pollard Miao

Qelsh

2. Which of the following are genuine names of existing languages, and which are anagrams of genuine existing names of existing languages?

Hunzib

Lezgi

Lule Sami

Malayalam

Meetei Mayek

Sranan

Tsez

Udmurt

Veps

Wolof

Yaghnobi

 

3. A number of alphabets or syllabaries are thought or known to have been the creation of a single person. Which of the following did NOT create an alphabet? (There may be more than one correct answer.)

Bn’nn’n

King Farnavaz of Georgia

Dr. Flo Darvin Lewis

Sir Isaac Pitman

The Reverend James Evans

Mesrop Mashtots

Momolu Duwalu Bukele

Sequoyah

St. Cyril

George Bernard Shaw

Zog of Albania

Have fun!