Bridges Between Languages

General Knowledge · 10 questions

Explore how words and writing systems cross borders. See who among your friends can build these language bridges fastest.

Answer each question first, then check with “Show the answer”. You can also play the same quiz in the Quizera app by searching for it in Explore, as a live game, a test or flashcards.

1. What language family do Spanish and Italian share?

   1. Uralic languages
   2. Germanic languages
   3. Semitic languages
   4. Romance languages
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   D) Romance languages

2. Which writing system is used for most modern Hindi?

   1. Gurmukhi
   2. Devanagari
   3. Gujarati script
   4. Bengali script
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   B) Devanagari

3. From which language did English borrow the word “tsunami”?

   1. Japanese
   2. Chinese
   3. Hawaiian
   4. Korean
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   A) Japanese

4. From which language did English borrow the word “yogurt”?

   1. Arabic
   2. Persian
   3. Turkish
   4. Greek
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   C) Turkish

5. The word “algebra” ultimately comes from “al-jabr” in which language?

   1. Persian
   2. Arabic
   3. Greek
   4. Hebrew
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   B) Arabic

6. Through Karel Čapek's play, “robot” entered wider use from which language?

   1. Polish
   2. Czech
   3. German
   4. Russian
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   B) Czech

7. Which two writing systems are used together in ordinary Japanese text?

   1. Katakana and Cyrillic
   2. Kanji and Latin
   3. Kanji and kana
   4. Hiragana and Hangul
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   C) Kanji and kana

8. Which ruler supported the creation of the Korean alphabet Hangul?

   1. King Sejong
   2. King Jeongjo
   3. King Gojong
   4. King Taejo
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   A) King Sejong

9. From which language did English borrow the word “kindergarten”?

   1. Dutch
   2. Danish
   3. Swedish
   4. German
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   D) German

10. From which language did English borrow the word “safari”?

    1. Hausa
    2. Zulu
    3. Amharic
    4. Swahili
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    D) Swahili