IOL Sample Solutions

Georgian Countries
In this question, one has only to decipher a different alphabet. For that, one can note that “Peru”
and “Uruguay”, in Georgian, have the same amount of characters as their translations;
furthermore, the repetition of U in Uruguay assures us that Georgian is written left-to-right. So we
can do the relation one-to-one. “Brazil”, nevertheless, has more letters than the version in English,
but thanks to the two other names, we already know some letters:
_RA_I_IA
This should probably be “Brasilia” or “Brazilia”. With those letters, we can guess the names of the
other two countries:
ARGE__I_A
__LU_BIA
which can only be Argentina and Colombia (Columbia).

Ancient Greek
1.
E 1 This is a typical problem of syntax. In order to align the Ancient
C 2 Greek sentences with the English sentences, you have figure out the
D 3 content words (master, son, donkey, house, and slave) and the
H 4 singulars and plurals. In order to get started, you need an anchor.
A 5 Once you have an anchor, you can figure out the rest by logic and
B 6 process of elimination.
G 7
F 8 Various anchors are possible. Three are described here.

i. Notice that four English sentences contain the word "master" or "masters" and that four Greek
sentences contain words that start with cyr. No other word occurs four times. Therefore,
"master" would be cyr.

ii. Count singulars and plurals. For example, in five English sentences, the second noun is plural
and five Greek sentences have the word ton.

iii. Although you can do this problem without recognizing any words, you might have recognized a
few. For example "adelphoi" looks like "Philadelphia", the city of brotherly love. If you know
that "phil" means "love" as in "bibliophile" (book lover), then you would know that "adelphoi"
means brother. You might also notice that "emporoi" reminds you of the word "emporium",
which is a market place.
Here we will use o: for what, in the problem, is written as ō.

Vocabulary Order of words

hyi son Each sentence starts with two articles, which are followed by two
dul slave nouns. The first article starts with "h". The second article starts
cyri master with "t". The first noun is the owner, and the second noun is the
oic house thing that is owned.
on donkey
adelph brother
empor merchant

Number (singular and plural)

For the owner (first noun in Greek; second noun in English): o:n is plural and u is singular.
For the owned (second noun in Greek; first noun in English): oi is plural and os is singular.

Matching of articles and nouns

The first article has an ending that matches the owned noun: ho is singular and hoi is plural.

ho .... dulos hoi ... cyroi

the ... slave (singular) the ... masters (plural)

The second article matches the owner: tu is singular and to:n is plural.

tu cyriu to:n hyio:n

the master (singular) the sons (plural)

2. So the translations are:

the houses of the merchants

hoi to:n emporo:n oicoi

 Start with "hoi" because the owned noun (houses) is plural.

 The next word is "to:n" because the owner (merchants) is plural.
 The next word is the owner, which will be the root "empor" with the plural ending "o:n".
 The next word is the owned noun, which will be the root "oic" with the plural ending "oi".

the donkeys of the slave

hoi tu dulu onoi

 Start with "hoi" because the owned noun (donkeys) is plural.

 The next word is "tu" because the owner (slave) is singular.
 The next word is the owner, which will be the root "dul" with the singular ending "u".
 The next word is the owned noun, which will be the root "on" with the plural ending "oi".
Aragonese
In this question, we have to compare two columns of words: singulars and plurals. With a little
examination, one notes that the ending of the plural depends on the ending of the singular. We
can thus deduce the following rules:
if the singular ends in add for the plural
L -S
T -Z
X -ES
vowel -S
So the table becomes:

valley bal bals

stool banquet banquetz

hole clot clotz

stone cantal cantals

awake concordau concordau-s

chocolate chicolat chicolat-z

union chunta chunta-s

unhanded deixau deixaus

eclipse eclix eclix-es

cicada ferfet ferfet-z

character personache personaches

fish peix peixes

Japanese Braille
This is another writing system problem, but in this case it is not an alphabet. The word karaoke, in
tenji, it has four characters, which may lead us to think that each character represents a syllable
(ka-ra-o-ke). Counting syllables of the other words can confirm that tenji is a syllabary.

Inside the syllable structure, however, we must understand how consonants and vowels are
represented. From “karaoke” can see that ka and ra have the same upper-left dot ( ), differing
only on the second dot position; furthermore, ka and ke have the same second dot position
(down-right – ). This is confirmed for there is a word starting with a (atari) and word f indeed
starts with . So the vowels are represented in the three dots at the upper-left part of the diagram:

a i u e o

The other three dots represents the variety of consonants. So the answers are:

1. 2.
a. haiku b. sake g. karate h. anime
c. katana d. kimono
e. koi f. atari 3.

i. j.

Lalana Chinantec
This is another syntax problem, in a model we call Rosetta Stone: some sentences are presented with
translations and, with that, we can understand part of the grammar of the language.
In this case, the word order is not so obvious. We can start by marking the substantives: corn (x4)
and pineapples (x2). After this, we can easily identify the pronoun “my” (x3). We can even paint
the words, like this:

kalakwa: kwɨ: li:Ɂ The beautiful corn grew.

mɨlaʤö mo:h kya My pineapples have turned out well.
li:Ɂ kalane kwɨ: kwa: kya My tall corn yellowed beautifully.
ʤö kalaro:h mo:h ne kya My yellow pineapples ripened well.
kalaʤö kwɨ: The corn turned out well.
mɨlakwa: kwɨ: The corn has grown
Then the verbs. From the last two sentences, it is obvious that they have internal structure: verbs in
the past simple receive kala-; verbs in the present continuous receive mɨla-.
The adjectives come after the substantives, as in mo:h ne / pineapple yellow and kwɨ: li:Ɂ / corn
beautiful. To use an adjective as a verb, one just have to use a verb prefix, as in ne – kalane / yellow
– yellowed and kwa: – kalakwa: – mɨlakwa: / tall – grew – has grown.
The adverb comes in the beginning of the sentence, as in li:Ɂ / beautifully and ʤö / well. (Don’t
mistake: the “well” in turned out well is part of the verb). Adverbs, adjective and verb nucleus
have all the same form.
So the general word order is: (Adverb) Verb – Subject (Adjective) (Possessive)

And the answers are:

1. li:Ɂ is beautiful(ly). 2. ro:h is ripe.

3. 4.
a) kalali:Ɂ mo:h ʤö c) The yellow corn has ripened.
PAST-(become beautiful) pineapples (good/well)ADJ
d) The corn grew beautifully.
b) ʤö mɨlane mo:h ro:h kya
(well)ADV [[Link]-(yellow) corn (ripe)ADJ (my) ]

Molistic
None of the adjectives are real English words. There are two classes of adjectives: "bad" and "good". We
will refer to this property of adjectives as "polarity".

Each sentence links two or more adjectives as follows: "X and Y" indicates that X and Y have the same
polarity. "X but Y" means that they have opposite polarities. Furthermore, "X and not Y" indicates
opposite polarities, "even though X, Y" also indicates opposite polarities, while "not only X but also Y"
associates adjectives of the same polarity.

The sentence about Diane shows that "strungy" and "struffy" are positive (desirable) quantities. By
identifying other occurrences of the same words in other sentences, one can label each adjective as either
positive or negative. In the end, one can see that there are seven positive adjectives (strungy, struffy, cloovy,
frumsy, danty, cluvious, and brastic) and five negative ones (weasy, blitty, sloshful, slatty, molistic).

1. Only sentence c includes adjectives of the right polarities, given the structure of the sentence.

2. Only answer d ("frumsy") is on the positive list above.

Persian
The word order is the same as in English. To solve the question, it was enough to note that there
are two words for 'under' in Persian:
• zir-e is used when the upper item completely covers the lower one;
• pāin-e is used when the upper item doesn't cover the lower one completely, more or less
as 'below' in English.

So the answers are:

1. 2.
a) the stool at the table. c) sang zir-e āb
if the stone is, say, in a river, that is, completely covered
b) the book under the bookcase. by water
sang pāin-e āb
if it's, say, at a waterfall

d) ja'abe pāin-e deraxt

if the box, say, lies on the ground
ja'abe zir-e deraxt
if the box is buried, say, under the roots of the tree

Kazakh
Counting how many times the words appear, we quickly discover the Kazakh numerals:

1 bir 10 on
2 eki 30 otız
3 üš 50 elüw
4 tört
5 bes in numbers >10, the tens precede the units.
7 žeti
8 segiz

The word 'and' is trickier, as it assumes three forms:

• pen after voiceless consonants
• men after vowels and sonorant consonants
• ben after other voiced consonants.

1. So the table becomes: 2. And the translations:

f i. segiz ben elüw h vi. otız ben eki

a ii. bir men bes d vii. tört pen žeti a) bes pen otız segiz
b iii. bir men segiz c viii. üš pen eki b) on men tört
i iv. elüw eki men on g ix. on üš pen otız c) žeti men elüw üš
e v. žeti men elüw d) otız segiz ben bes
Taikyoku Shōgi
We note the repeated elements hei 'soldier' (3, 6, 8) and shō 'general' (2, 7, 13, 18); do 'crossbow'
(8), gyū 'ox' (3), ki 'wood' (7), kyū 'bow' (6), seki 'stone' (18), tō 'sword' (2), ton 'pig' (13). The
element hon is repeated several times in the animal rows. We can assume that it means 'dashing', a
meaning repeatedly seen in the glosses. Then ro is 'wolf' (17) and roku is 'stag' (1). The modifier
precedes the head throughout; consequently sō is 'running' and yū is 'bear' (12). We can also
derive tes 'iron', u 'right' and sha 'chariot'. Then gun is 'army' (4) and sa is 'left' (15). The only
other thing left is ba, which has to mean 'horse' (11).
Relying on the similarities in the meaning, we can distinguish several patterns of promotion. Each
pattern groups together men whose unpromoted ranks have names in which one part is shared
while the other (call it ξ) varies, albeit in a limited way.
1., 12. sō-ξ ⟹ hon-ξ ξ: animal ('stag', 'bear')
'Running ξ' 'Dashing ξ'
5., 13. ξ-shō ⟹ hon-ξ ξ: animal ('ox', 'pig')
'ξ General' 'Dashing ξ'
7., 14., 18. ξ-shō ⟹ hakuzō ξ: material ('wood', 'iron', 'stone')
'ξ General' 'White Elephant'
4., 15. ξ-shō ⟹ ξ-gun ξ: side ('left', 'right')
'ξ General' 'ξ Army'
10., 16. ξ-sha ⟹ ξ-tessha ξ: side ('left', 'right')
' ξ Chariot' 'ξ Iron Chariot'
2., 6., 8. ξ-hei ⟹ ξ-shō ξ: weapon ('sword','bow', 'crossbow')
'ξ Soldier' 'ξ General'
3., 11. ξ-hei ⟹ sō-ξ ξ: animal ('ox', 'horse')
'ξ Soldier' 'Running ξ'

The shared part is affected by the promotion (usually in a way that makes some intuitive sense).
The other part is not, except in the case of the three material Generals, all of which promote in the
same way. There is no ordering between the various values of ξ in each pattern. We can use this
table to determine what promotes to what, or from what. Only rows (9) and (17) can cause
hesitation. We may assume that the Dashing Horse starts off as a General (as do the Ox and the
Pig) and the Dashing Wolf as a Running one (as do the Bear and the Stag), because the first
animals are tame and the second ones are wild. We are now able to complete the assignment:
 1. sōroku “Running Stag” ⟹ honroku “Dashing Stag”
2. tōhei “Sword Soldier” ⟹ tōshō “Sword General”
3. gyūhei “Ox Soldier” ⟹ sōgyū “Running Ox”
4. ushō “Right General” ⟹ ugun “Right Army”
5. gyūshō “Ox General” ⟹ hongyū “Dashing Ox”
6. kyūhei “Bow Soldier” ⟹ kyūshō “Bow General”
7. kishō “Wood General” ⟹ hakuzō “White Elephant”
8. dohei “Crossbow Soldier” ⟹ doshō “Crossbow General”
9. bashō “Horse General” ⟹ honba “Dashing Horse”
10. sasha “Left Chariot” ⟹ satessha “Left Iron Chariot”
11. bahei “Horse Soldier” ⟹ sōba “Running Horse”
12. sōyū “Running Bear” ⟹ honyū “Dashing Bear”
13. tonshō “Pig General” ⟹ honton “Dashing Pig”
14. tesshō “Iron General” ⟹ hakuzō “White Elephant”
15. sashō “Left General” ⟹ sagun “Left Army”
16. usha “Right Chariot” ⟹ utessha “Right Iron Chariot”
17. sōrō “Running Wolf” ⟹ honrō “Dashing Wolf”
18. sekishō “Stone General” ⟹ hakuzō “White Elephant”

Tupí and Guaraní

This kind of question offers comparison between two languages that have some similarities. Here
we have to be careful in taking note of each regular correspondence between the columns.
Investigating carefully, we can condensate the patterns of transformation in five rules:

1. s ↔ h
2. b ↔ v (only in the middle of the word)
3. pu ↔ ku
4. final consonant → Ø (final consonant disappears from tupinambá to guaraní)
5. · n / · ng / · nga ↔ ·̃
(when the word finishes in vowel + nasal consonant, the consonant disappears in guarani
and is replaced by nasalisation of the vowel)
 English Tupinambá Guaraní Mbya English Tupinambá Guaraní Mbya
rock itá itá to beat petek peté
soil ybý yvý to hear senub henú
water y y red pyranga pyrã
black un ũ lizard teju teju
head akanga akã I say a‘é a'é
to bring erur eru beautiful porang porã
to hear endub endu mouth juru juru
to experiment sa‘ang ha‘ã half ku'a ku‘a
you want erepotár erepotá wood ybyrá yvyrá
to heal pueráb kuerá you stay erepytá erepytá
I sleep aker aké high ybaté yvaté
boss ubixab uvixá you sleep erekér ereké
rib arukang arukã jaguar jaguar jaguá
to overcome opuan akuã to want potár potá
peanut mandubi manduvi

2. A good way to start pairing the cities is grouping the names by its more general physical feature:
river (í), soil/land (ibí), rock (itá):

I-úna great river Ibi-úna beautiful land Ita-ipu great rock

I-guaçu black river Ibi-tinga black soil Ita-uçu white rock
I-piranga red river Ibi-poranga white soil Ita-tinga sound in the rock
Tijuípe lizard river
Among those, the different one is Tijuípe, that doesn’t start with i, but should be the lizard river
because it has “lizard” (teju) in the name. Actually, the name is teju (lizard) + í (river) + pe (locative
particle). Apart from that, una is the particle that appear both in land and river, so it must be
“black”. Furthermore, “red” and “beautiful” are in the original table. So there is one left among
the rivers (great / guaçu) and one among the lands (white / tinga). This last conclusion gives us
two of the rocks, lefting only the sound of water in the stones (ita + i + pu).

With all that, there is only four names left:

Pirajuí turtle's burrow
Pindamonhangaba alligartor's/yacare's burrow
Jacarecoara fish of the yellow river
Jericoaquara place for producing fishing hooks
“yacare” leaves no doubt that coara/ quara is burrow, and jericoa as turtle. The river should appear
once more, in pirajuí – the river (í) of the yellow (ju) fish (pira). The last one is pindamonhangaba.

So we have:

1. Ibiúna (SP) _7_ (a) white soil

2. Ibiporanga (SP) _15_ (b) great river
3. Iúna (ES) _5_ (c) place for producing fishing hooks
4. Tijuípe (BA) _4_ (d) lizard river
5. Pindamonhangaba (SP) _9_ (e) red river
6. Jacarecoara (MA) _8_ (f) turtle’s burrow
7. Ibitinga (SP) _11_ (g) sound the water does in the rock
8. Jericoaquara (CE) _13_ (h) great rock
9. Ipiranga (PR) _6_ (i) alligator’s/yacare’s burrow
10. Tijuaçu (BA) _1_ (j) black soil
11. (Usina de) Itaipú (PR) _3_ (k) black river
12. Itatinga (SP) _14_ (l) fish of the yellow river
13. Itauçu (GO) _2_ (m) beautiful land
14. Pirajuí (SP) _10_ (n) big lizard
15. (Foz do) Iguaçu (PR) _12_ (o) white rock

Inuktitut Numbers
The problem presents a different number system. We can go in the order of operations presented:
1. In the first operation, we see that two bars are equal the sum of one bar with another.
In the lack of further divisions of the bar, we can assume the bar is 1.
2. In the second operation, a new element appears: the dash (horizontal stroke). It is
evident that one dash = 5 bars.
3. Operations 3, 4 and 5 confirm that, saying that we can also add dashes, and multiply
the numbers.
4. Operation 6 says that (5+4) • (5+2) = 9 • 7 = 63 is represented as 3 3 (the repetition
of the numeral with a space between them strongly suggests that this is a positional
number system). So we discover that the numbers of the second position are counted
from 20 to 20.
5. Operation 7 introduces the zero (the neutral element of sums).
Formally, we say that the system of positional notation has base 20 and a sub-base 5. In other
words, the numbers from 0 to 19 are:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

After that, we start to count using a second house:

etc.
20 21 22 23

So the first number, right to left, count as the unities; the second position is multiplied by 20, as
the third position is multiplied by 202 = 400 and so on. So, in the same way that, in the indo-arabic
system, 123 = 1•100 + 2•10 + 3, in the Inuktitut system, = • 400 + •20 + = 443.

So the results of the operations of the second column are:

summing the bars, when we go 5, we put a dash on the top

multiplication by zero is zero

– 1 0 is the same as four dashes

five dashes

– visually obvious...

Sum the 20s (1+ 1=2) and then the unities: 2 + 4 is 1 bar plus 1 dash;
this gives us 4 dashes, so one more 20 (+1 to the left) with 0 dashes. So
the number is 3.1

The date will depend on when you are solving this problem. This problem was first used in
April 2nd , 2011. As 2011 = 5.0.11, the date at that occasion was : : .

Basque Numbers
The following Basque numbers are identified straightforwardly:

2 bi 3 hiru 4 lau 5 bost

7 zazpi 9 bederatzi 10 hamar 20 hogei

Numbers from 11 to 19: hama-X | 10+X (where X is less than 10)

Numbers over 20: X-r-ogeita Y | X×20+Y (where Y is not greater than 20)

* In compounds 10 is hama (not hamar), 20 is hogeita (not hogei).

** The letter h in the beginning of the second word in a compound falls out (e. g., lau-r-hogeita >
laurogeita ).
 bi × bi = lau 2×2=4
bi × bost = hamar 2 × 5 = 10
bi × hamar = hogei 2 × 10 = 20
hiru × bost = hamabost 3 × 5 = 15
hiru × hamar = hogeita hamar 3 × 10 = 30
bost × bost = hogeita bost 5 × 5 = 25
bost × zazpi = hogeita hama 5 × 7 = 35
bost zazpi × bederatzi = hirurogeita hiru 7 × 9 = 63
zazpi × hamar = hirurogeita hamar 7 × 10 = 70
lau × bost = hogei 4 × 5 = 20
bederatzi × hamar = laurogeita hamar 9 × 10 = 90

2. 3.
a) 93 c) 39 = 20 + 19 hogeita hamabederatzi
b) 60 d) 77 = 3×20 + 17 hirurogeita hamazazpi
e) 80 = 4×20 laurogei

Basque Kinship
The Basque sentences are formed in the following way:

Name1 – Name2 (genitive form) – relationship – copular verb.

The copula is da for singular subjects and dira for plural subjects. The genitive form (Mikel's,
Kontxi's, ...) has the ending -en (after consonants), -ren (after vowels).

A woman's 'sister' is ahizpa, a man's 'sister' is arreba. Similarly, a man's 'brother' is anaia, a
woman's 'brother' is neba. 'Wife' is emaztea, 'husband' is senarra. 'Spouses' (or 'married couple')
is senar-emazteak, literally 'husband-wife-s'. Seme-alabak means 'children' (of different sexes,
literally 'son-daughter-s'); seme is 'son'; therefore, alaba means 'daughter'. Eta means 'and'.

1. 3.
Ines is Mikel's wife. a) Kontxi Monikaren ahizpa da.
Kontxi is Monika's sister.
Felix is Mikel's brother. b) Inma eta Manu Iboneren seme-alabak dira.
Andres is Emilio and Miren's son. c) Ibone Andresen arreba da.
d) Manu Inmaren neba da.
2. We know that Monika is ahizpa to Kontxi; e) Kontxi Mikelen alaba da.
therefore, Kontxi is female.
f) Emilio Mirenen senarra da.
Icelandic Kinship
There are no family names in Iceland, these ones that you pass from father to son in a vertical
lineage. They have only patronymics – the names that indicate the first name of your father, your
mother, your grandparents, etc. From observing the names, one can deduce the following rules for
Icelandic patronymics:
 If X is man,
o X Y-(s)son/-arson means “X son of Y”.
o X Y-(s)son Z-(s)sonar says that, before X being son of Y, Y was son of Z, thus
Z is grandfather or grandmother of X.
 If X is woman,
o X Y-(s)dóttir means X daughter of Y”.
o X Y-dóttir Z-dóttir means that Z is grandfather or grandmother of X.

 When the progenitor (Y or Z) is a man, there is an extra -s- before -son/-dóttir,

a genitive case indicator.
Aside from that, there are no rules on how the name should be composed: only the parents decide
if the son will carry or not the name of father, mother or any of the four grandparents.
Furthermore, there were some hints in the problem: Jakob and Guðrun had three children and all
of them had children. Viktor (item 3) and Steinunn (item 4) both have children. Christian e Eva
(item iv) are married. With that, we can discover that:

Jakob C. e Guðrún had three kids: Ragnheiður Jakobsdóttir, Steinunn Jakobsdóttir and Daniel
Guðrúnarsson.
Ragnheiður married with Jón Oddson Bergmann, son (or grandson, or great-grandson) of a
foreigner, probably german, dutch or swedish. This is because Bergmann is a family name (that
means, in German, literally ”mountain man“), that passed to their children and grandchildren.
They had two kids: Sigurður Jóns Bergmann and Rakel Ragnheiðardóttir Bergmann.
Sigurður had a relationship with somone (that was not in the pary) and had a son:
Ingmundur Sigurðarson Bergmann.
Rakel married Gunnar Gunnarson, a man that has the same name as his father. They had
two kids: Stefan Gunarsson Gunarssonar and Robert Bergmann Gunnarsson.
Steinunn married another Jakob, the Ðorarinsson. Together they had three children: Daniel
Steinunnarson Ðorarinssonar, Sara Jakobs Ðorarinssonar and Margret Steinunnardóttir Jakobsdóttir. As
far as we know, none of the three married or had children.
Daniel G. had a relationship with someone (also not in the party) and had one son,
Viktor Danielsson Jakobssonar.
Viktor married Kristín Guðrúnardóttir Aronsdóttir (daughter of another Guðrún, that was not
in the story so far, that was wife, daughter or daughter-in-law of a man called Aron), they
had three kids: Christian Kristínsson, Hrafn Kristínsson Viktorsson and Viktoría Viktorsdóttir.
Christian married Eva Emilsdóttir Kvaran (also descendant of an imnmigrant, family
name Kvaran) and, as is said in item 6, they are waiting the first Great-great-
grandchild of this beautiful family.
We can put all in a tree:

Thus we can answer the questions:

1. Jón Oddson Bergmann

2. Steinunn. She had three children: Daniel, Sara and Margret, none of them had children.
3. Three: Christian, Hrafn and Viktoria
4. Three: Daniel, Sara and Margret
5. Stefan Gunnarsson Gunnarssonar. He received only names of his father and his father‘s father.
6. Guðmundur (Evasson /Christiansson)(Emilsonnar /Kristínsonnar/Viktorssonar) (Kvaran)
7. Hrafnildur Björnsdóttir (Annassonar)

Manam
The ananlysis of the given examples suggests that auta, ilau, ata, and awa are the significant words,
which probably represent directions. For reference, “X pera kana”means “X’s house”, and ieno
means “is located.”
We can see that auta and ilau appear to be opposed, and that ata and awa are also opposed. We
thus hypothesize that they represent two axes of dimenstions, and we support this hypothesis by
observing that their compounds are intermediate directions, such as awa ilau vs. ata auta, and awa
auta vs. ata ilau. In fact, these compounds may occur in either order; for example, ilau awa and auta
ata are also directions. Ilau awa is similar but not identical to awa ilau, in the same way as “north-
north-west” is similar but not identical to “west-north-west.”
When we analyze the relative locations of the houses of Onkau, Kulu, and Mombwa, we may be
tempted to assume that auta is North, ilau is South, awa is East, and ata is West. This assumption
works until about halfway through the problem, but then we should notice contradictions: either
these directions are very imprecise or some houses are in the sea.
When we reach a contradiction, we should try discarding some of the underlying assumptions; in
this case, we discard the assumption that the islanders reckon the traditional directions, that is,
North, South, East, and West. Instead, we should consider other directional possibilities that may
occur to the islanders.
In fact, auta means “inland” or “upland,” which is the same thing on a cone-shaped volcanic
island, and ilau means “seaward.” Furthermore, Ata means “clockwise around the island,” and awa
means “counterclockwise”. The compound direction awa auta thus means “inland in a
counterclockwise direction”.
An alternative approach to solving this problem is as follows. We may be fairly certain that the
directions form two axes, auta/ilau and ata/awa. Instead of placing islanders on the given map, as
soon as we have a hunch where they live, we can work out an abstract two-dimensional map
indicating the relative locations of the houses.
Then, by comparing it to the given map, we can see that the only way to reconcile the two maps is
to “wrap” the abstract map around the island, that is, to curve the Cartesian grid of houses into a
polar grid centered on the volcano.

Note that some of the directions are irrelevant to the problem, and we have included them only
for completeness. Also note that the angle between auta and North depends on a specific location,
which means that this compass would rotate with respect to the traditional North/South compass
as we walk around the island.
If you have solved this difficult problem, you are probably able to examine and revise your initial
assumptions, which is an essential research skill.
1.
A: Pita B: Butokang C: Sulung D: Tola E: Sala
2.
i. Arongo pera kana ilau ieno, Butokang pera kana auta ieno.
ii. Arongo pera kana ata ieno, Pita pera kana awa ieno.
iii. Arongo pera kana awa ilau ieno, Sulung pera kana ata auta ieno.
Guaraní
The Guarani verb consists of:
a. prefix n(d)(a)-, if negation exists;
b. person and number of the subject: a- ‘I’, o- ‘he’, ja- ‘we’, pe- ‘you (pl.)’;
c. root;
d. -(r)i, if negation exists;
e. ending -ma for past tense or -ta for future tense.

where:
• the negative prefix should start with n (rather than nd) in case the root of the verb
contains any nasal sound
• the vowel a is dropped from the negative prefix in case the personal prefix starts with a
vowel.
• if a future tense is to be negated, the suffix is -mo'ãi, rather than *-(r)i-ta; the negative
suffix is -ri after the vowel i; -i otherwise.

1. 2.

a) I was eating f) ne-pe-mbokapu-i

b) He will be waking up g) ndo-purahei-ri
c) I will not be taking h) ja-karu-ta
d) you are not crying i) nda-purahei-mo’ai
e) I wasn't catching

Aymara
1.
g 1 We need to notice the following patterns in order to solve this problem:
• challwataxa is the last word of each sentence, which may mean “caught”
b 2 (lie!)
or “fished.”
a 3 • mä, paya, and kimsa are the numbers.
c 4 • challwa is the root “fish.”
d 5 • –lla indicates the little fish, whereas hach’a indicates the big fish.
f 6 • –mpi occurs whenever there are two kinds of fish.
e 7 • –wa occurs at the very end, but before challwataxa.

2. There are two possible correct answers:

Kimsa challwalla paya hach’a challwampiwa challwataxa.
Paya hach’a challwa kimsa challwallampiwa challwataxa.
Toki Pona
This is a typical semantics problem that comes in a chaos-and-order (or Kibuzi) form: some words
in a language and their translations out of order to be paired. So we map the morphology of the
words in the language and map the semantics of their translations and try to match it.

The mapping in the Toki Pona side is

easy to do, as the words are easy
compositions. All terms but three are
composed by two words; two are
composed by three words and one is a
single term (tawa). Furthermore, if we
count we see that each “primitive” word
occurs not more than three times. With
that in mind, we can draw a map, where
the words of the assignment are marked
as red circles and the primitive words are
black dots.

From the English side, we do not have a

so clear map, but we know the language,
so we can try to decompose the words in
smaller semantic unities:

piss: liquid, yellow, warm, stinky, etc.

gold: stone, yellow, bright, valuable, etc.

bed: horizontal surface, comfortable, used to sleep, etc.

book: made with paper sheets, full of words, knowledge, etc.

In the beginning, we don’t know which characteristics are important for the problem, so we might
think on many different possibilities. The aim would be to have a graph in a similar shape on that
one with Toki Pona words, so we can pair one-by-one. This can be a lot of work, and we don’t
even have to actually draw the graph, but at least we know it can be done: for example, the graph
above doesn’t have any symmetry, no point identical to any other one.

It would do better to start from some specific part. For example, we could start with the closed
circuits, like the hexagon in the left part, composed by jelo, telo, kiwen and their combinations
(telo jelo, telo kiwen e kiwen suno jelo). To match them with English, we must find three words
that each two share at least one characteristic. We could note that gold and piss are yellow, ice and
gold are stones, ice and piss have water as main component. Furthermore, one of them must appear
in a fourth word (could water in boat or stone in thorn, for example).

Also, there is one proper name (Boris) that is easy to pair with the only word that has a capital
letter (jan Powi). From that we can assume that jan means ‘person’, ‘human being’. Also, toki
pona should have some relation with ‘language’, ‘word’, etc.
Doing all the relations, we come to this list:

kiwen suno jelo gold stone – bright – yellow

tomo tawa telo boat house – moving – water
jan Powi Boris person – Boris
ilo suno lantern tool – light
telo jelo piss water – yellow
jan ilo robot person – tool
jan toki prophet person – word
supa lape bed surface – sleep
supa moku dinner table surface – eat
ma tomo city land – houses
wile moku hungry will – eat
tawa movement movement
nasin linja orthodoxy path – straight
wile pona well-intentioned will – good
telo kiwen ice water – hard (as stone)
lipu toki book flexible surface – words

So, the concepts are:

kiwen rocky, solid object jan person lipu flexible surface

suno light,bright, sun ilo thing, tool wile will, desire
jelo yellow toki word, to speak ma land, soil, earth
tomo shelter,house, vehicle supa horizontal surface nasin path
tawa movement lape to sleep linja (straight) line
telo water moku to eat

With that, we discover that toki pona means good language.