The Language Lover's Puzzle Book Lexical perplexities and cracking conundrums from across the globe Puzzle Books Paperback 5 Nov 2020

by Alex Bellos

From the bestselling author of Alex's Adventures in Numberland and Can You Solve My Problems? comes a fascinating, hugely entertaining collection of puzzles for crossword addicts and language-lovers of all stripes.

'Alex Bellos is a wizard.' - Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist

The Language Lover's Puzzle Book is a book of more than 100 surprising and entertaining puzzles that celebrate the amazing diversity of the world of words and language.

Featuring a huge variety of ancient, modern and even invented languages, this collection of problems will introduce you to unusual alphabets and scripts, curious vocabularies and phonologies, and global variations in simple behaviours like counting, telling the time, and naming children.

Whether you are a crossword solver, a code-breaker or a Scrabble addict, these puzzles are guaranteed to twist your tongue and sharpen your mind.

Genres: Nonfiction, Linguistics, Language, Puzzles, Science, Mathematics

Paperback

About the author

"I was born in Oxford and grew up in Edinburgh and Southampton. After studying mathematics and philosophy at university I joined the Evening Argus in Brighton as a trainee reporter. I joined the Guardian in 1994 as a reporter and in 1998 moved to Rio de Janeiro, where I spent five years as the paper’s South America correspondent. Since 2003 I have lived in London, as a freelance writer and broadcaster.

[...]

In 2003 I presented a five-part series on Brazil for the BBC, called Inside Out Brazil. My short films about the Amazon have been broadcast on the BBC, More 4 and Al Jazeera International."

Reviews

[Tom Bower · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is composed of 100 language puzzles based on more than two dozen far flung as well as familiar languages, interspersed with preamble to give more background around how the different language features came about and how they work.

While I enjoyed solving some of the puzzles, be warned that many of them (perhaps the majority) are fiendishly hard and with just a casual interest in languages you should expect to spend many, many hours working through them all. My favourite aspect of the book was in fact the prose rather than the puzzles, and I would have loved if it had been more in-depth, because fitting it all in 250 pages (the remaining ~150 pages are taken up by answers) along with the puzzles resulted in many interesting looking concepts deserving of more discussion feeling a bit rushed.

Because this book is aimed at a more general audience and not professional linguists, I would have enjoyed if the more difficult puzzles contained a bit more hand-holding or context beforehand, which would give a more realistic chance at solving some of the puzzles without resorting to reading the (detailed and thorough) answer section. For example, some of the puzzles jumped to conclusions and made assumptions which didn't feel rigorous enough to me as a non-professional linguist, but I imagine are fairly common methods among professionals. Perhaps a section dedicated to approaching this kind of puzzle would be welcomed in a future edition? Despite this, I am still giving this book four stars because the answer section was still an interesting read, and I ended up learning about some wonderful and wacky languages and their features in the process.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Warning: unless you are a trained linguist, don't expect to be able to solve the puzzles!

This is a book of extremely difficult language puzzles. It's good because it tells a lot about world languages: their histories, their evolutions, and their scripts. Just relax & enjoy the book, but don't expect to solve most of the puzzles!

[Tim Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

His other puzzle books are a bit patchy, but here Alex Bellos is very much in his element. This, I think, will go down in history both as his magnum opus, and as the best language puzzle book ever written. It fills a gap between logic puzzles and word puzzles. In retrospect, it is hard to see why it has never been done before: a sure sign of genius.

This is, however, definitely a language-lover's book. If you know nothing about phonetics, grammar, or any language other than English, at least half the puzzles will be incomprehensible. But you will still enjoy Cistercian sign language.

There is far too much here to be read at one sitting. A book to come back to, again and again, over many years.

[Kitty Red-Eye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and entertaining. I haven’t done the puzzles yet, wanted to read first and then go back to work through them. They do look a little difficult, will probably need some time for several of them.

[Sue Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perplexing puzzles starting at medium goi g to extra hard. The text on the puzzle's creation was the most interesting. I am sure I have enjoyed it much more in a print vs an ecopy ARC.

[Alexander Labinsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read about it in the Economist, figured that I would like this kind of puzzles and I wasn’t let down: A great collection of fascinating language and script puzzles. Who loves both the quirks of languages and a good brain teaser won’t regret the time spent on it. It contains 100 puzzles of varying difficulties. The great thing: It doesn’t start easy and than gets gradually more difficult but more challenging problems and easier ones are mixed as the puzzles are orders by topics. So if you feel lazy you can just skip the harder ones in a chapter and concentrate on the more accessible puzzles. Another great feature are the very extensive solutions that help to understand even the most baffling puzzles. I needed about two hours per chapter (10 puzzles), although this meant that I would usually give up on the hardest puzzle in the chapter. However, I had fun and learnt a lot. Highly recommended!

[Linda]

Recommended by The Economist 10-31-2020 issue: https://www.economist.com/books-and-a...

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had lots of fun with this book. Just a small note to the author - I'm pretty sure I found two mistakes in the answers just among the last ten puzzles (puzzles no. 94 and no. 100).

[Claus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book. The puzzles can be very challenging.

[Ánh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Challenging and fascinating!

[Marta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is, without any doubt, my all-time favorite book. I absolutely adore it!
It is not only fun and challenging but also educational and really interesting.
I actually knew a few of the puzzles because one year ago, I discovered the International Linguistics Olympiad.
And imagine my surprise when I read that the author had written the book while on lockdown last year 😮
While everybody was bored out of their minds, he came up with and developed this amazing book.
Furthermore, he is really nice, because I wrote him an email thinking that I had found an erratum (I actually hadn't) and he answered back shortly after and clarified my doubt.
So, yeah, all in all, a perfect book that combines two of my favorite things—linguistics and puzzles—and was written by an awesome human being 💯

[Diane Hernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I consider myself both a language nerd and a puzzle lover. So, The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book is definitely in my wheelhouse. But others beware, some of these 100 puzzles are devilishly difficult. But all are fun! And most will teach you something whether you can solve the puzzle or not. For example, I now know Japanese is even harder to learn than I thought. However, writing Chinese characters is surprisingly easy (but only if I don’t care what they mean).

If you love (a) learning new things or (b) doing puzzles, The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book is the perfect book for you. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 stars!

Thanks to The Experiment and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

[TechnicolorBri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loving this! I'm a big fan of Alex Bellos, you should check him out in some of Brady Haran's Numberphile channel on youtube.

This book really gets your brain going with unique and mind-boggling questions and puzzles. You can get to know your own English a little more in-depth, and take a stab at recognizing patterns in other languages as well.

Alex is kind enough to place the answers in the back of the book, just like in school.

[Tfalcone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Way over my head.

[Azure · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely book! Makes you very curious about world languages

[Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I freaking love this thing.

It's fun, it's brilliant, and it's quirky. Also, who knew I would be so good at translating cuneiform?

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pleasant and sometimes mind-boggling book. Solving all the problems would require quite a lot of effort, but it could be worth it.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally posted on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

The Language Lover's Puzzle Book is a wide ranging mixed bag of wordplay and linguistic puzzles by Alex Bellos. Originally released in the UK in 2020, this reformat and re-release by The Experiment is 416 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.

This book is full of thematically grouped word puzzles to solve and as well as a multiple choice test (lingo bingo). The puzzles range from very easy to quite difficult and they will provide readers with hours of solving fun.

One of the things I liked about these puzzles in particular was that they've got a linguistic twist. Many of them are set up particularly to allow readers to use given information to logically extrapolate an answer by using patterns and language to build from A to B. Here's an example from the book blurb:

boru niko = two balls
tsuna nihon = two ropes
uma nito = two horses
kami nimai = two sheets of paper

ashi gohon = five legs
ringo goko = five apples
sara gomai = five plates
kaba goto = five hippos

Now, how do the Japanese say “nine cucumbers”?*
a) kyuri kyuhon
b) kyuri kyuko
c) kyuri kyuhiki
d) kyuri kyuto

The book includes word chains, acrostics, crosswords, and other variations more difficult to describe and further outside the standard puzzle fare.

Four stars. Due to the nature of the puzzles (and because writing in library books is a big no-no) this would probably be less than ideal for library acquisition. It will, however, delight language and word-puzzle fans.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

[Finlay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was hesitant to buy this because I thought the puzzles might be too easy for a seasoned linguist. But they were actually a decent difficulty for the most part and really delve into the wider world of linguistic diversity. The puzzles are taken from linguistic olympiads, which is cool.

Even so, one caveat I'd highlight for any other language nerds is that you'll definitely have some puzzles spoiled for you from general knowledge. I just completed the last puzzle quickly because I've heard of it before. I already knew the Japanese days of the week, and how to read Korean, so I had to skip those. And for some of the puzzles where you have to decypher an unseen alphabet, I already knew which direction most of them are written in and some basic knowledge about their structure (syllabic, alphabetic, etc), which meant that I skipped some of the logical deductions that were built into the puzzles. The answer key was detailed, though, and I actually enjoyed reading how the puzzles were designed.

Pretty sure I found a couple of typoes here and there in the answer key but I can forgive that... I guess.

[Anabela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a fun book with language problems to solve. It made me laugh, think, happy when I solved something right and frustated when I realized I was on the right track but gave up without much reason other than that I was tired, haha.
I'm no specialist in languages but still got more than 85% right, so don't get scared by comments saying this is oh so very hard to do, just try and enjoy it and it'll be worth it. And even if you don't solve the problems right, you learn about our world and its many diverse cultures. I truly enjoyed this Puzzle Book very much.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

You must have at least a passing interest in the quirks and weirdness of languages to appreciate this book. I do and this was the best puzzle book I've read so far (and I have read a few over the years). I methodically went through each problem and sometimes spent whole evenings working them out, scribbling notes on paper over and over.

Engaging, fun, never boring, it provides brief windows into populations and cultures you'd never hear about otherwise.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this book. It has 100 puzzles featuring all sorts of languages - ancient and modern, common and endangered, natural and constructed - as well as writing systems for the blind, a color labeling system, and much much more. I highly recommend this book.

There were 2 errors that I found in the book. In the answers for puzzle 94, answer d should be Kuruwasi. And in the answers for puzzle 100, it should say "The answer a) is correct."

All-in-all this is a phenomenal book.

[Theia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a copy of the book.

It you have any sort of interest in linguistics, puzzles or language in general and are looking to challenge yourself then you should give this a read. This contains 100 puzzles that increase in difficulty as you move along.
I'd see myself using some of the simpler puzzles with my students to challenge them from time to time.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have been a fan of AB’s column in the Guardian for a while, so decided to use this actively in class to put Latin and Modern Languages students through their paces. They love it and are totally engaged!

[Tuxali · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent and exciting book that frequently forces you to think "out of the box". Hours and hours of fun and intense training for the little grey cells. There are a few faulty (maybe due to typos) or ambiguous solutions and problem definitions, though.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read through the paragraphs while doing some of the puzzles, the rest I plan to come back to later. Lots of interesting linguistic facts, you can see the author’s enthusiasm very clearly. However, if you’ve read any other books about linguistics it is likely there will be repeat information.

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it, but really wished I had a paper copy as the kindle version often has the page breaks in really unhelpful places and I couldn’t write on the pages.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic! Pushes all my language nerd buttons.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moeilijk😬

[Seda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm glad I took this on holiday with me because I needed some relaxing time on the beach to get through the more challenging puzzles.
My braincells will never be the same. Loved it!