The 34 Languages of McDonald's

An Interactive Linguistic Quiz

This set of pages was inspired by a visit to McDonald's in May 2004. Along with our son's Happy Meal, we got a small playstation-type game where you have to help a monkey catch bananas as they fall from the sky. I was amused to note that the instructions came in no fewer than 34 languages, spoken in and around Europe . It occurred to me that even without speaking a word of some of these languages, it is possible to work out what they are from their unique spelling peculiarities, and as we munched away I scribbled down my guesses.

Then I thought, why not see if other people find this an interesting process? So I've drawn up this interactive quiz - no scores, just the intellectual challenge at each stage of knowing how many guesses it took you to get the right answer.

So here we are. But before we start, a word of warning - not all of the languages concerned are in the same alphabet as English. Indeed, even those that are mostly have a lot of extra diacritical marks - not just letters like �, �, �, �, �, and � which most internet browsers will show correctly, but also weirder cases like ą, ē, č, ğ, ľ, ń, ş, and even ů. For those weirder letters, when we get to them, I'll describe what they look like so it shouldn't matter too much if you can't see them. But if the alphabet is completely different, it becomes a bit difficult to do even that. So, please consider this table:

AIAI БЕРБА НА БАНАНИ

Помогни му на AIAI да се собере сите банани Среќно! תפוס את הבננה AIAI

עזור ל-Tails לאסוף את כל הבננות. בהצלחה ! AIAI ბანანის ლაჭერი

დასმარება AIAI მოაგროვეთ ყველი ბანანი. აბა იცით! جمع موز AIAI™

ساعد AIAI™ في جمع الموز. حظا موفقا ! Το Πιάσιμο της Μπανάνας του AIAI

Βοηθήστε τον AIAI να συλλέξει όλες τις μπανάνες. Καλή Επιτυχία!

The first of the four alphabets is used by five of the languages in the quiz. The others are used by one language each. You can probably see the last one clearly, as it's programmed into most browsers, but the others are more exotic (especially the middle one). If you can't see them clearly you will be at a disadvantage in doing the quiz. If you can see them all, start the quiz. If you can't, start the shorter version.

Each page will give you a selection of up to 45 languages to choose from (32 languages in the short version). If you make the wrong choice you can try again. I don't yet have anything sophisticated like a marking mechanism - you'll have to keep score for yourself. I have placed an "I give up!" link at the bottom of each page in case it seems impossible to guess the right answer.

Please send comments, either by email or in my livejournal

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