Rasmus Rask Puzzle V
Diamonds Are Forever

by Lila Rosa Grau

This is the fifth 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 in a diamond shape are given to provide a framework for filling in the answers.

Complete the puzzle and send your solutions to the editors of SpecGram by April 15th, 2017, and you could win a prize.^* The correct solution and winners, if any, will be announced in the upcoming May issue.

0	1	2 R	3	4	5
1	K		A
2 S				S
3	A				M
4		R		U
5			S

Across

0

• A missile weapon thrown in a pub

• A sudden, repetitive vocalization

1

• Transliteration of the Hindi word for one

• Latin for among others, (abbrev.)

• City abbreviation for military mail

2

• One of the trig. functions

• A variable unit of distance in India, being one to three miles

3

• The planetary setting for a 1950s sci fi novel in which the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis plays a key role

• 3P.SG copula

• A trademark that is not for a product

4

• Method by which a computer reads

• The ambal number applies to this kind of group

5

• The Ph.D. student’s final output

Down

0

• A tyrannical ruler

1

• Archaic companion to pain

• One per

2

• A Spanish reflex of earlier Romance borrowing of Gothic

• onset + nucleus

3

• The (Chinese philosophical) Way

• Documents who say you are who you claim you are

4

• One’s computerized address

• A thing that has been written after another thing

• Language that sometimes uses the Shuǐshū script

5

• Opposite of chaos

The solution to last month’s puzzle, Fly, Sigh, Sentence Ugly, is this:

The notion of representing a sound by a graphic symbol is itself so stupefying a leap of the imagination that what is remarkable is not so much that it happened relatively late in human history, but that it happened at all.

If that makes no sense at all to you, the word you are looking for is Cangjie—good luck! Each of the puzzlemeisters below will receive some SpecGram merch:

Tuuli Mustasydän • Nick Miller • James Constable

	Sprachgeist Guides for the Linguist on the Go!—Part VIII—Book Announcement from Panini Press
	SpecGram Vol CLXXVIII, No 4 Contents