The puzzle was adopted from the book “Problems from Linguistics Olympiads, 1965-1975”, MCNMO - Moscow, 2007. The editor is Roman Senkov.
“The Armenian language is known to us from the fifth century CE onwards thanks to an unbroken literary tradition comprising three periods: Classical or Grabar (5th to 11th centuries), Middle (12th to 16th), and Modern (17th to 21st). The fifth century is regarded as the golden age of Armenian literature. Armenian is written in its own alphabet, which was created by Mesrop Mashtots and originally consisted of 36 original letters, to which ō and f were added at a later stage.” Hrach Martirosyan, Aspirantum Blog.
The puzzle is purely logical and no prior knowledge of Armenian language is required to solve it. Please do not search for the translations. The solution to this puzzle will be published in the next Ad Astra issue. Good luck!
Below are the 12 months of the year written in Armenian script. The order has been randomized.
օգոստոս, փետրվար, հուլիս, հունիս, դեկտեմբեր, մայիս, հունվար, նոյեմբեր, ապրիլ, հոկտեմբեր, մարտ, սեպտեմբեր
Question. Please match each name of the month shown in Armenian script to its English counterpart.
Hint: Please note that the months in the Armenian language may sound similar to their counterparts in some other languages, but this phonological similarity is not complete and allows certain variations in the pronunciation. Compare, for example, English January, French Janvier, German Januar, and Russian Janvar' (Январь).
Please send us your solutions to adastraletter@gmail.com, use "linguistic puzzle Ad Astra 2021, issue #2" as the subject line.
★ Solution of the Linguistic Puzzle 2021, issue #1 (Ad Astra 2021/1):