Neo-Latin and Craft Latin: Recent Trends in Rival Latinitates—Fletcher Bowyer Scrugg SpecGram Vol CLXXV, No 4 Contents

Cryptolinguistic Puzzle 2

Mary Shapiro
Truman State University

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Across

1. Curlers past her uterus got twisted, describing a language’s syntax (3 words)

8. Oh! nice quotes! Put differently, like, WHAT?! (2 words)

11. Later Egyptian about nerve for vision

12. Greek letter, one way then another, has most native speakers in the world!

13. Opts to form obstruent

14. However nerdy, providing correction to Grimm

17. A puta I punish for holding back Alaskan language

18. Long Island squid unusual, rare, e.g. to have two

19. Ice-T, large, regroups to approach goal

21. Scandinavian language spoken in north or southeast?

22. Author Easton Ellis on Celtic language spoken in France

26. G.I. lit universal city, it rearranges as Sapir & Whorf were said to predict (2 words)

28. If in empty sheets, these may push or pull, historically

31. In support group, Mary breaks into Andean language

33. Gelatin via gut is unhealthy, lots of sticktogetherations

34. Loving minus fifty, revamped founder of functionalism in linguistics

35. Does May unusually branch off from Uralic?

36. Wacky zee pins these, or inserts a sound
Down

1. Their abbrev. sounds like #1, in English, e.g. (2 words)

2. Police officer pursues nothing, eaten by ape losing final sound

3. Following Chomsky & Halle’s work, cheats, disoriented, around about—all this to say what? (2 words)

4. All conversation depends on this: actor Gary, returning Argentine first lady and prince holding (briefly) inferior parietal lobule (2 words)

5. Meal contained speck, a long time ago (2 words)

6. Contrasting pitch singly chewed up and consumed more than one (2 words)

7. NY’s cinch, or wild at one point in time

9. This word, emptied, he’s a common person.

10. Universal Grammar you let get turned around in Dravidian language

15. A jaguar, a ninja, a concealed indigenous S. American language

16. Backwards muslim chief lacks onset

20. A unit almost containing reversed Italic language

23. Oh, bleak-sounding case!

24. I ate rivet, over and over and over again!

25. Bally’s returns before French article to form vowels (with or without surrounding consonants)

27. Said ex, if fussy, featured retro bits, finally attached

29. How to describe someone like him? “Surly” sounds perfect.

30. Margo went back, lost liquid, and got high, in ancient British and Irish alphabet

32. Will I or mother speak a Polynesian language? Vice versa!

Like other cryptic crosswords, the clues in this puzzle are not straightforward. Unlike most, however, this one focuses mainly on languages and linguistics. For instance, the clue for Zapotec might be “Oto-Manguean variety alters pez coat” (anagram of pez coat), or “Indigenous Mexican language to destroy overtime prior to European Commission” (ZAP + O.T. + E.C.), or “a nice top, a zany blouse conceals retro Oaxacan language” (niCE TOP, A Zany), or many other combinations of puns, anagrams, or typographic quirks. Punctuation in clues is often misleading. Each clue contains both a definition (of sorts) and a more cryptic part, but these may come in any order.

If you can complete (or make a good effort on) the crossword and send your solutions to the editors of SpecGram by April 15th, 2016, you could win some SpecGram merch.* The correct solution and winners, if any, will be announced in the May issue of Speculative Grammarian.

The answers to March’s Speculative Scavenger Hunt are as follows:

  1. The Roman alphabet as featural code: Spelling Made Simple—Rev. Q. X. Shawtwain

  2. A Spaniard sensitive to cold: Thirteen Untranslatable Words—Michael Covarrubias

  3. My self-referential wallet: Multitudinous Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know—Madalena Cruz-Ferreira

  4. A cat with many markings and none: A Reanalysis of English Cat—Hoam L. E. Orange, Ph.D.

  5. An essential for the glossopoetic kitchen: The Conlanger’s Pasta Machine—Advertisement

  6. The article that found its author a wife: The Hidden Language of Public Seduction—An Anthropological Linguistic Study of Spanyol—Claude Searsplainpockets (though the story is recounted in I Told You it was Not the Whole (Number) Story—An Anthropological Linguistic Followup on Non-Integral Person in Åriðmatçəl Verbs—Claude Searsplainpockets & Helga von Helganschtein y Searsplainpockets)

  7. Murder, magic, and Mongolian: Strangecraft—Mikael Thompson

  8. Monsters Who hate high back rounded vowels: Funology—Classical Cyberphonemics—Rachel Jamison

  9. Golfers confused by homophony: 27 Things Linguists Didn’t Know About Tea—Number 12 Made Me Cringe!—Bas Fête

  10. A case of two going out irregularly: Systematic Suppletion: An Investigation of Ksotre Case Marking—Lawrence R. Muddybanks, Ph.D.

Only one puzzlemeister was able to answer the call of this over-the-top puzzle, and she will receive some highly-coveted SpecGram merch:

Emily Davis


* Note that SpecGram Anti-Hoarding Guidelines stipulate that puzzle-related prizes cannot be won by anyone who has won a puzzle-related prize in the last three months—though honor, fame, and glory may still be seized on the metaphorical field of puzzle-related battle.

Neo-Latin and Craft Latin: Recent Trends in Rival Latinitates—Fletcher Bowyer Scrugg
SpecGram Vol CLXXV, No 4 Contents