wiki-illiam #104: q7

[dubdobdee]

Q7:
i: Which language was developed by a Polish ophthalmologist?
ii: Which language of the Romance group has a definite article suffix?
iii: Of which European language is the origin unknown, even to the experts?
iv: Which geographically Scandinavian language is not linguistically Scandinavian?
v: Which European language is the only survivor of its branch of the Indo-European group?
vi: Which Slavonic language is spoken in a country whose national language is not Slavonic?
vii: Which European language is spoken by about 1% of the population of Switzerland?
viii: Which European language has a past tense form which looks like a future?
xi: Which Slavonic language has done away with the case forms of nouns?
x: Which European national language still retains the dual number?

the rules as they have evolved:
a: nice full answers and anecdotes if poss
b: say if googled or no; leave time for non-googlers to play
c: obviously look ahead at future questions if you want
d: don't bring in confirming or dissenting answers from other fora until next set is up and running

spoilers: language-related obviously -- is i esperanto (but there are other invented languages); iii may be basque?; iv i assume is finnish...

Comments

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

i) Made by a Pole at least; L. Zamenhof.
ii) Romanian I think. IIRC, "the X" = "Xul". (Or is that a plural? Suddenly unsure.)
iii) Agree with Basque.
iv) They probably want Finnish, although it's a bit fishy. For one thing, Finland does not belong to Scandinavia in the narrow sense. Also, Sami languages -- official in parts of actual Scandinavian countries -- are not IE.
v) I assume Greek? It is its own IE branch, and I can't think of any other languages in there.
vi) Must be several surely?
x) I know Icelandic has vestiges of the dual (ie a third form of words in addition to the singular and plural), in that the old dual personal pronoun for "you" is used as a honorific form, but this seems a bit too thin to say it is "retained". (Again, this is very IIRC.)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

which are the slavonic countries? is vi one of the baltic states?

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

That might be my confusion, I was assuming Slavonic = Slavic

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think Slavonic does = Slavic - assume the answer is some Romanian minority language.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

seems plausible that since 1989, one of the "former USSRs" has made non-russian the offical language but lots of people still speak russian?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

When we looked at the actual quiz in the copy of the Guardian I vaguely remember boyofbadgers mentioning Magyar for this one?

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Nah, Magyar is totally non-Slavonic.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Yes, but the other way round: another Slavonic language is spoken in Hungary where the only official language is Magyar?

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

I would guess that Russian is spoken in all of them to some degree or other. Don't know about its official status.

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

There's something called Sorbian spoken in um possibly Germany I think! Not sure of which branch it belongs to.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

This seems like the most likely answer to me, if only because the question seems to be missing an 'only', and Sorb isn't really spoken anywhere else, unlike e.g. Russain.