Native Tongues
According to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of people in the United States who spoke a language other than English at home nearly tripled from from 1980 to 2019, reaching a total of nearly 68 million. Conversely, the number of people in the United States who spoke only English also increased during that same period by almost twenty-five percent.
We find these apparently diverging trends intriguing. While the English language remains the dominant means of communication in our country and, increasingly, around the world, people who speak other languages are all around us. One consequence is that the growing number of Americans who speak only English nevertheless come into contact with foreign words and phrases so regularly that those become known and understood – and often incorporated into English itself.
In this week’s puzzle, based on a quote from a book about multilingualism by Northwestern University professor Viorica Marian, we attempted to use as many words and phrases as possible of non-English origin as answers or in the clues, and from as many different languages as possible. If you are willing to stretch a point – and why not, for the sake of fun – you might even agree that every clue/answer pair either does this or at least points to a non-English language or to notions of multilingualism. (Yes, Mohawk is a language, also known as Kanienʼkéha, currently spoken by about 3,500 people of the Mohawk nation.)
How many different languages did you see represented in this acrostic?
If you have six minutes and want to see some incredibly cute kids speaking foreign languages, check out the video below. It’s heartening to witness children so curious about the languages that others speak.
Acrostic fans may also be Wordle addicts like me. If so, you may be familiar with the “Wordle Review,” a daily blog connected to each day’s Wordle puzzle. (English language version). It often has about 800-1000 contributors from all over the world by the end of the day. An unusual Internet site since it is inhabited almost entirely by witty, well-informed, and caring people. Hardly ever an unkind remark. While many posts discuss that day’s puzzle and the trials and tribulations of solving it, others discuss the arts, current events, travel stories, and even happy or sad personal stories. Almost all are interesting. Since many players speak and write English as a second (or third, etc.) language, some posts discuss that day’s Wordle solution and its connection to other languages. A Swedish man, a serious student of English etymology, always posts a story about the sources of that day’s solution in various languages and language groups. Fascinating for anyone interested in words and their sources.
Clue C. particularly delighted me in that one’s first step could also be one’s last step in a manner of speaking.
This reminded me of the time
Anthony Burgess gave a lecture and described the act of a very diminutive person’s getting up and down from a chair.
The Acrostic and the accompanying video were really khorosho.
Thanks for the wonderful and wise quotation, and your graceful, thought-provoking commentary.
Oh, yeah, the video of the kids was also amazingly charming. Among its many virtues was the sweetness the older kids displayed to the smaller ones. (All the children were great, but the little Russian girl pretty much stole every scene when she chimed in.)
I also love the way the puzzle exemplified the point you make in your commentary. Most answers, even if obviously from other languages, are so embedded in our vocabulary that we don’t even think of them as foreign. But you also managed to toss in a few that were undeniably visitors from afar. (I’m looking at you, hygge and glogg.)
I count answers that are Italian, French, Persian, Latin, Spanish, Russian, Danish, old English, Yiddish, Greek, Chinese, Hawaiian, Japanese, Swedish and German. And sometimes multiple examples. Pretty impressive feat of construction!
See Jane and Dave’s talk at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament here: https://youtu.be/AlX7bCmqhoA?t=5093
This was lovely! I counted 20 words, including old/Middle English/Latin and 5 in-clue references. When I got hygge, I recalled the book “The Year of Living Danishly, “ by Helen Russell, which was delightful. Back in the day, when I needed an extra class in college, I always took a language class, French, Spanish and Japanese. Spent 2 years in Japan helping Japanese junior high schoolers learn English and also had a free night school class for adults. I learned how difficult learning English can be and have had a soft spot for those who give it a go ever since. Great video and very a propos :).
Yes, absolutely amazing. As a perfectionist, I note three French phrases. We colud have had two other languages.
It was heggy, not hegge.
I agree with Barbara that learning English is really challenging for non-native speakers. Equally daunting is getting down the pronunciation. This fellow, Bobby Finn, has a sequence of YouTube videos that hilariously illustrate this point. Here’s one of them:
https://youtu.be/3iamMO5rS9I?si=7awmOoWIEYY6WZXM
Another winner with a timely and inspiring quotation. I did have to look up the spelling of RUBAIYAT (also AFICIONADO). I think I had trouble with RUBAIYAT because all I could think of was the Rocky and Bullwinkle episode in which Bullwinkle discovers the ruby yacht of Omar Khayyam. I was also delighted to see EOLITH find a place in the acrostic today because the Sam Ezersky’s spelling bee would not allow it. One plaudit for Balton and Stewart and one demerit for Ezersky.
As a new Acrostic player, I am uncertain as to what constitutes “cheating”. I look up spelling as you did, where I know the word but I am unsure of the spelling. Is that cheating?
There’s no such thing as cheating in Acrosticland, as far as we’re concerned. Learning new words is part of the fun!
As a new Acrostic player, I am uncertain as to what constitutes “cheating”. I look up spelling as you did, where I know the word but I am unsure of the spelling. Is that cheating?
That video is hilarious… try explaining that to wonderful Japanese people… and try to make sense of it. Some of the kids would just put their heads down on their desks.
What a tour de force in the cluing! I can’t remember when I’ve had so much fun with an acrostic. And on the serious side, the sentiment of the quote is lovely. Thank you.
What a delightful surprise to see a quote from my book “The Power of Language” in this week’s NYT acrostic! Thank you, Jane Stewart and David Balton, and thank you to the readers – I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s lovely comments.
Thank you for the inspirational quotation, Professor Marian! It looks like you’re doing fascinating work.
I’m a retired teacher. Acrostics are my favorite type of puzzle. I’ve done, literally, thousands of them over the years. I’d guess around 7 or 8 thousand, maybe more. Back in my grad school days in the 1970s, in Massachusetts, I used to read the Sunday “Times” and do the Sunday crossword every week. If there was an acrostic back then, I didn’t try that. In later years, back in NJ, I took to reading the Newark “Star-Ledger” on Sundays. I told people I was too lowbrow for the “Times” and bought it only occasionally. On one of the times when I did buy it on a Sunday, I tried the acrostic and I was hooked, on acrostics, if not on the “Times”. At one time, I had a teaching colleague, named Steve, who was a big crossword fan. He ran a crossword club for the kids and left several copies of the daily crossword on the table in the faculty room, and I did them when I had time. But Steve never did the acrostics, and, every Sunday when there was one, he’d bring it to me on Monday, and I’d make sure to let him know what the quote was when I finished. (R.I.P. Steve. Cancer got him, and I miss him.)
Since the demise of the print edition of the “Star-Ledger” in February, I have been getting the Sunday “Times” and have done the acrostic when it has appeared. This past Sunday 4/6, I scanned the clues and found myself saying “What the heck is this???” “Chipped flint” “taro tops”, a number of incomprehensible-seeming clues. I don’t know Greek! I pride myself on never (well, hardly ever) looking up an answer. I’ll check one if I’m not sure, before entering it, since I do the puzzles in ink, and I try to avoid strike-overs. This puzzle seemed beyond the pale entirely. But then, I found answers “Nyet”, “Vespa”, etc., and I knew Guernica, and light began to dawn as to the subject of the quote, and the puzzle overall. When new acquaintances used to ask me what I taught, my stock answer was “I teach languages, ancient and modern, foreign and domestic.” Then I would specify: French, Latin, Spanish, and English. I also know smatterings of several others. It turned out that this puzzle, with its admirable quote sentiment, was right up my alley. It even gave me a chance to do my very favorite thing, what I call “inventing” a word and having my “invention” turn out to be a correct answer. When I looked again at that clue about chipped flint with the answer from the Greek for “dawn” and “stone”, and I got an “O” for the second of 6 letters, I realized that the Greeks called the dawn “Eos”, and that a common Greek-derived syllable for “stone” is “lith”. (I had had “lith” recently in another puzzle.) So, I said ‘Eolith” maybe?’ (which I had never heard of before) and I looked that up. Eureka! In short, I’m not sure I ever enjoyed an acrostic as much as I enjoyed this one. To Mr. Balton and Ms. Stewart, I say Muchas grazie pour das optimum puzzle!!! And I hope they see this before it gets deleted.
Welcome to our blog, Rich! We’re so glad you enjoyed this puzzle; it sounds like its content was right in your wheelhouse. You can find all of our puzzles, as well as hundreds by our predecessors, Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, on the marvelous site http://www.xwordinfo.com, run by Jim Horne. For just $20 a year, you can solve digitally or print them to do by hand.
As always, I really enjoyed this acrostic, Jane and Dave. I had the pleasure of chatting with you, Jane, at ACPT this past weekend (the Oppelt connection), when you happened to mention that the two of you created three different language-themed puzzles for the Friday night contest. I’m guessing that this was one of them?