Titles in Fantasy Linguistics—Announcement from Scholartastic Books SpecGram Vol CLVII, No 2 Contents
Rasmus Rask Puzzle II
Rasmus vs Ethnologue!

by Lila Rosa Grau

This is the second Rasmus Rask puzzle, devoted to the original Mr. Charming Scandinavian Linguist. The puzzle is similar to a crossword puzzle, in that there is a grid for filling in words and phrases, and clues for the ACROSS and DOWN directions. However, all the squares in a Rasmus Rask puzzle are filled with letters, and the answers to the clues may (but are not required to) overlap. Clues for a particular row or column are given together, in the order they appear in the grid. No indication of the amount of overlap between clues is given. Letters spelling out RASMUS RASK along the diagonal are given to provide a framework for filling in the answers.

In order to have more 10-letter words in this puzzle, it was necessary to allow unpronounceable gobs of letters to accumulate in various parts of the grid. Fortunately, almost every TLA is a valid Ethnologue ISO 639-3 code! (If you look up all of them, you will be unfulfilled, and it will take much too long.)

Complete the puzzle and send your solutions to the editors of SpecGram by October 15th, and you could win a SpecGram magnet of your choice. The correct solution and winners, if any, will be announced in the upcoming December 2009 issue.

ACROSS
0   • A question you shouldn’t answer
 
1 • Center Embedding scholars Mike and Hippo, or a reversible word
 
2 • Exempli gratia
• An expected hole in the roof?
 
3 • One of the speculative Modistae
 
4 • Of, or relating to, all things relevant to SpecGram
 
5 • North Alaskan Inupiatun (ISO 639-3)
• The lower edges of windows
• Society of post-philologists in the western hemisphere, or Lasgerdi (ISO 639-3)
• ___ Paolo, Brazil
• Latinate eggs
 
6 • The first real muscle car, by Pontiac
• A notebook, laptop, tape recorder, or Shoebox, for a linguist
• Big
• Geruma (ISO 639-3)
 
7 • Sound resulting from an incomplete closure of the vocal tract
 
8 • The linguistic school espousing economy of derivation and representation
 
9 • A diacritic

DOWN
0   • Prestigious British accent
• A pirates artificial limb
• Grand Ole Opry Award show, or Maa (ISO 639-3)
 
1   • A wizened old woman, or Hanga (ISO 639-3)
• A batch of grain for grinding
• One of Zeno’s impassive posse
 
0 R 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 
1      A                                                        
2         S                                                 
3                M                                          
4                       U                                   
5                              S                            
6                                     R                     
7                                            A              
8                                                   S       
9                                                          K

2   • Scandinavian relative of “Elizabeth”
• Negatively charge particle
• Satirical news network, or Onobasulu (ISO 639-3)
• Nancere (ISO 639-3)
 
3   • ___-tok (no Pisin, alas), or Tikar (ISO 639-3)
• British sports car manufacturer, milligram, megagram, or magnesium (abbrev.)
• Pierre ___, pseudonym of Louis-Marie-Julien Viaud
• Businessmen’s noose, or Tingal (ISO 639-3)
 
4   • Suffix meaning “word”, seen repeatedly in these clues
• To cogitate, contemplate, debate, deliberate, meditate, or ruminate
• To draw or outline in sharp detail
 
5   • Alphabetic part of ordinal number 3, 23, or 33, but not 13 (English is stupid, no?)
• Poetic forms at which 14th century influence of Chaucer, Guillaume de Machaut, excelled
• Finnish word for “words”
6   • Reduplicated radiation, below the red? (abbrev. abbrev.)
• Popular encryption scheme
• Arua (ISO 639-3)
• Ulmanda’ (ISO 639-3)
 
7 • How Descartes deduced his ‘sum’itude
• Romanized party dress
• Earth goddess
 
8 • Major language of Ethiopia (ISO 639-3)
• Far East affirmative, or Haida (ISO 639-3)
• ___ Bede (abbrev.)
• Maritime Sign Language (ISO 639-3)
 
9 • Auto-antonym meaning both to allow and to hinder, or Lesing-Gelimi (ISO 639-3)
• American university sports organization
• Banking machine, or Ata (ISO 639-3)
• Northwestern Tamang (ISO 639-3)

Titles in Fantasy Linguistics—Announcement from Scholartastic Books
SpecGram Vol CLVII, No 2 Contents