In what has apparently become a never-ending quest, SpecGram continues to bring you the best in Linguistically-Themed Pseudo-Nihonese Puzzlicity. Our newest addition is Masyu Ortograpiu, an orthography-based variant of the popular Masyu puzzle form.

Solution from last time.

From last time: at right is the solution to the Samurai LingDoku puzzle. Two correct solutions were submitted, and from that group two winners have been selected to receive SpecGram magnets as prizes. The winners are:

Rebecca Defina of Leura, Australia
Esme Winter-Froemel of Tübingen, Germany

Masyu Ortograpiu is played on a grid, with several squares that contain symbols from various writing systems. The goal is to draw a single continuous non-intersecting line that properly passes through all squares containing writing symbols, forming a single closed loop.

The different varieties of written symbols have different requirements for how the line must pass through them:

• Cells with symbols from an alphabet must be traveled straight through, but the loop must turn in the cell either right before or right after the cell with the alphabetic symbol. (These correspond

  “English is what you get from Normans trying to pick up Saxon girls.” —Bryan Maloney

  to white circles in traditional Masyu.)

• The loop must make a right angle turn in cells with symbols from an abugida, an abjad, or a syllabary, but the loop must travel straight through the next and previous cells in its path. (These correspond to black circles in traditional Masyu.)

• Cells with logographic, pictographic, or ideographic symbols will each behave in one of the previous two ways, to be determined while solving the puzzle. Hint: Watch out for those pesky symbols from Linear B; some are ideograms, and some are not!

If you find you are up to the challenge of Masyu Ortograpiu, email your solution to SpecGram. At least one random winner chosen from among those who send in correctly completed puzzles by February 15th, 2007, will earn a SpecGram magnet.

A solution (likely the solution, but we make no promises) and the name of the prize winners (if any) will appear in the upcoming March issue.

	Cartoon Theories of Linguistics—Part I—Non-Configurational Languages—Phineas Q. Phlogiston, Ph.D.
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