[echidna]

I'm not convinced that we're looking for a common ancestor or link to all these languages.

One of the main sticking points to all these theories is Japan. Japanese is classified as belonging to it's own language group - Japonic - the only other members of which are the Ryukyuan languages. Among scholars it's considered highly debatable whether the Japonic languages are related to any other existant languages but they are definitely not descendents of Chinese as someone suggested. There's a useful article on the Wiki about this. The only other language native to Japan that I could find was Ainu which is considered a language isolate as is Korean which provides a further sticking point.

The theory that all these languages had a common pre-PIE (sorry - that's probably really bad grammar) ancestor is considered pretty speculative. Again, according to the Wiki:

Quote:

Many higher-level relationships between PIE and other language families have been proposed. Due to the great time depths, there is necessarily a great deal of speculation involved, and as a result the proposals are very controversial. Perhaps the most widely accepted proposal is of an Indo-Uralic family, encompassing PIE and Uralic. The evidence usually cited in favor of this is the proximity of the proposed Urheimaten of the two families, the typological similarity between the two languages, and a number of apparent shared morphemes. Frederik Kortlandt, while advocating a connection, concedes that "the gap between Uralic and Indo-European is huge", while Lyle Campbell, an authority of Uralic, denies any relationship exists. Other proposals, further back in time (and correspondingly less accepted), model PIE as a branch of Indo-Uralic with a Caucasian substratum; link PIE and Uralic with Altaic and certain other families in Asia, such as Korean, Japanese, Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut (representative proposals are Nostratic and Joseph Greenberg's Eurasiatic); or link some or all of these to Afro-Asiatic, Dravidian, etc., and ultimately to a single Proto-World family (nowadays mostly associated with Merritt Ruhlen). Various proposals, with varying levels of skepticism, also exist that join some subset of the putative Eurasiatic language families and/or some of the Caucasian language families, such as Uralo-Siberian, Ural-Altaic (once widely accepted but now largely discredited), Proto-Pontic, etc. (my bold)

- it seems to me to be quite a vague theory to build a card around. I'm inclined to agree with doublecross's post above - I think we're looking for a more creative solution rather than a straightforward factual one.

[doublecross]

My guess is that the answer will depend on the precise choice of countries, whether it's languages, capitals, initials, or whatever. Putting them in an order and choosing what feature is required is the challenge.

One thought I had is that in only about half the countries given did the language they speak today originate there (e.g. Spain, Netherlands, Japan, but not Brazil, USA or New Caledonia). Don't know if that helps.

[Guin]

i can confirm it isnt

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Indo-Uralic Caucasian

[corrina]

Can confirm it's not

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Sanskrit

[The Wizard]

anyone tried

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sanskrit

its another ancient language from the south/east asia region....[/quote]

[corrina]

I'm thinking that there must be another link between these countries as Greece is missing and Greek is part of the Indo European make up. Going off on a completely different tangent I was thinking maybe it is the countries that are missing that we should be looking at? Probably not but its just an idea.

I have tried and failed with

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Aramaic and Hebrew - just trying to think of old languages

Bit stuck after that.

[Guin]

just thinking aloud here sorry its turned into a long one):

Vons clue and the name of the card would suggest first language.

Wiki has a good bit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_speaker

Mother tongue being the first language a person learns seems to stand out for me.

The difficulty is the link between the assorted contries / nations identified on the map. PIE would certainly explain several of these - however as chimera245 points out Japan.

however this may be answered here:

http://www.robotwisdom.com/science/pie/

where we are told:

Quote:

To the proto-Indo-Europeans' immediate north was the related (Nostratic) Finno-Ugric language group, which survives most notably in Finnish and Hungarian. To the south in the Caucasus was the Kartvelian language group, eg Georgian. To the east was the Altaic group including Turkic. (All of these were caucasian peoples, as were originally the orientals of China and Japan, and even the American Indians.) Farther south, in the near east and north Africa, was the Hamito-Semitic language group including Egyptian and Phoenician (which survives as Hebrew). Farther east in India was the Dravidian group. Between the Semitic and the Dravidian was Sumerian, now extinct. (None of these was racially caucasian, though the Dravidian language was Nostratic via conquest.) Of Europe's non-pIE languages at this point, only Basque (again caucasian) has survived. Europe had been mostly buried by glaciers until their gradual retreat began in 15,000 BC. It's very likely that one or more Nostratic language groups close to pIE dominated eastern and central Europe in 4500 BC, but as the pIE horse-culture moved west, these were overlaid by the Baltic, Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, Italian and Greek groups.

this would explain some of the choices made on the map

I am looking into pre pIE languages but alas I must go to work

Here is another link that I am looking into:

http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/indoeuropean.html

oh - and mom would surely be too simple as it is effectively in the title.

alas i must go.

[girlwithnolife]

I tried it for you and it didn't work - sorry

[echidna]

Maybe it's something to do with the names of the countires in their native tongue; in which case, according to my encyclopaedia, you get:

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Albania - Shqipëri Angola - Angola Austria - Österreich Brazil - Brasil Chad - Tchad Ecuador - Ecuador Egypt - Misr Equatorial Guinea - Guinea Ecuatorial Eritrea - Ertra Georgia - Georgia Guatemala - Guatemala Ireland - Éire Israel - Yisra’el/Isrâ’îl? Japan - Nihon Jordan - al’Urdun South Korea - Taehan-Min’guk Laos - Lao Liberia - Liberia Mauritania - Mûritãniyã Netherlands - Nederland New Caledonia - Nouvelle Calédonie Oman - ‘Umãn Russia - Rossiyskaya Federatsiya Somalia - Somaliya Spain - España UK - Britain/Great Britain? US - America/United States? Uzbekistan - Ozbekiston Republickasy Which, if it's an anagram, gives you AAA(U)BB(G)EEEEGGGLLMMNNNOORSSTTUY(I). Among other things I can make out the words MANY LANGUAGES from this - bit of a long shot, but had anyone with the card tried 'polyglot'?

[Fuseunderground]

There is definitely no line separating Wales or Scotland on my card

Rich

[shaumac]

On my copy of this card it appears as though Wales is separated from England by the same faint grey line that separates the other countries from their neighbours. I can't see whether Scotland is similarly separated.

Could anyone confirm whether this appears to be the case on their cards as well?

shaumac

[Fuseunderground]

Sorry for repeating doublecross's info,
I was half-way through typing a response when I got distracted.
At least everyone is in agreement.

For the sake of completeness, here's a map

[Fuseunderground]

Well spotted ambskunk,
I have confirmed your corrections.
The list now reads

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USA Guatemala Ecuador Brazil UK Eire Spain Mauritania Liberia Equatorial Guinea Angola Eritrea Somalia Chad Egypt Israel Jordan Oman Netherlands Austria Albania Georgia Russia Uzbekistan Laos South Korea (Republic of Korea) Japan New Caledonia

[doublecross]

I checked the card very closely last night and can confirm that there are

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28 countries (although New Caledonia is not technically a country) on it as follows, with Internet suffix and main language spoken: Albania - .al - Albanian Angola - .ao - Portuguese Austria - .at - German Brazil - .br - Portuguese Chad - .td - French Ecuador - .ec - Spanish Egypt - .eg - Arabic Equatorial Guinea - .gq - Spanish Eritrea - .er - Afar Georgia - .ge - Georgian Guatemala - .gt - Spanish Ireland - .ie - English Israel - .il - Hebrew Japan - .jp - Japanese Jordan - .jo - Arabic Korea - .kr - Korean Laos - .la - Lao Liberia - .lr - English Mauritania - .mr - Arabic Netherlands - .nl - Dutch New Caledonia - .nc - French Oman - .om - Arabic Russia - .ru - Russian Somalia - .so - Somali Spain - .es - Spanish UK - .uk - English USA - .us - English Uzbekistan - .uz - Uzbek The initials of the languages give APGPFSASAGSEHJAKLEADFARSSEEU. It may not be an anagram of this, or there will be some way to order it, because that would make it more difficult than Primer, which is a silver. There is a possible further island country to the north of New Caledonia (due west of the 'o' of Mother) but I think it is part of the background as it is greyer and there is no corresponding archipelago of the right shape there.

[corrina]

Von's Hint:

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To really understand a country, you have to go native