Linguistic Puzzle #2

The puzzle was taken from the book “Problems from Linguistics Olympiads, 1965-1975”, editors: by V.I.Belikov, E.V.Muravenko, and M.E.Alekseev, MCNMO - Moscow, 2007. The puzzle was adopted and translated from Russian by the Society of Physics Students.

The puzzle is purely logical and no prior knowledge of Danish is required to solve it (although knowing how to count in French may be helpful for this problem). Please do not search for the translations. The solution to this puzzle will be published in the next Ad Astra issue. Good luck!

The following are Danish mathematical calculations. The numbers are given in numerals and an approximation of their pronunciations are used (you can also click on some of the numbers below to hear how they are pronounced, the audio were borrowed from https://www.speakdanish.dk). Fill in the blanks ?.

1. fem × fir = tyve
2. fem × fem = femotyve
3. fireofirsinstyve + seks = halvfemsinstyve
4. seksotresinstyve + niden = femofirsinstyve
5. femden + femotresinstyve = firsinstyve
6. treden + ? = niotyve
7. seks × ni = ?
8. niotresinstyve + fireotyve = ?

Please send us your solutions to adastraletter@gmail.com, use "linguistic puzzle, Ad Astra Newsletter, issue #2 2020" as the subject line.


★ Solution to the Linguistic Puzzle #1: