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Which word is valid in the most languages?

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 11:18 am
by Joseph Krol
Which word is valid in the most languages on Apterous?

I'm sure someone once told me it was taxi, but I am not sure. If you have to add accents it doesn't count. If you PM me a link to a dictionary site which has it in a language unavailable on apterous, then I will consider adding it to the list. However, for it to count in any of the languages available on Apterous, it has to be in the Apterous dictionary.

Taxi is valid in 8/12 languages:
CSW
Dutch
English
French
German
Italian
Portuguese
Spanish

Can this be beaten?


Yours faithfully,

Joseph the Awesome

Re: Which word is valid in the most languages?

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 11:22 am
by Matt Morrison
Russian, Hebrew, and Greek use different alphabets so (unless I'm missing something obvious) there is never going to be any crossover that includes any of those three.
So taxi is really valid in 8 out of 9 relevant languages, not 8 out of 12.

Re: Which word is valid in the most languages?

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 11:37 am
by Craig Beevers
Would have thought there'd be something in all 9, going through food like pizza or croissant would be a good place to start.

Re: Which word is valid in the most languages?

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 12:23 pm
by Charlie Reams
Personally I wouldn't count CSW either, since it's a different dictionary but the same language.

Re: Which word is valid in the most languages?

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 1:13 pm
by Karen Pearson
If we're not counting words where you need to add an accent, then you need to take Portuguese off the list for TAXI as it has an accent on the A (as I know to my cost when playing Apterous in Portuguese in the early days when every letter seemed to have an accent on it).

Re: Which word is valid in the most languages?

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 1:16 pm
by Bob De Caux
CAFE is valid in all 9

Re: Which word is valid in the most languages?

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 1:40 pm
by Joseph Krol
Thanks. So really taxi is valid in 7/8 languages, as I have pieced together. Cafe might be dodgy due to the accent on the e. I will check it later.

Re: Which word is valid in the most languages?

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 2:19 pm
by Gavin Chipper
What about various currencies? They're all allowed in English language Countdown, and they're not exactly exclusively English words. Krol sounds like it's probably a currency somewhere.

Re: Which word is valid in the most languages?

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 4:17 pm
by Peter Mabey
EURO

Re: Which word is valid in the most languages?

Posted: Fri Dec 03, 2010 7:53 pm
by Joseph Krol
Gavin Chipper wrote:What about various currencies? They're all allowed in English language Countdown, and they're not exactly exclusively English words. Krol sounds like it's probably a currency somewhere.
Nice thought, but I'm pretty sure it isn't!

Re: Which word is valid in the most languages?

Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 7:20 pm
by Matt Bayfield
PIANO is valid in every apterous lexicon (except for Russian, Greek and Hebrew).

Re: Which word is valid in the most languages?

Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 7:53 pm
by Gavin Chipper
What about words with one or two letters?

Re: Which word is valid in the most languages?

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 11:50 am
by Martin Smith
Incidentally, EURO is also a breed of kangaroo. At least in English, Apterous only has 1 Z, so PIZZA would never be played. Is CROSSAINT the most versatile nine-letter word? Can anybody think of any words which are Darrens in multiple languages?

Re: Which word is valid in the most languages?

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 1:13 pm
by Michael Wallace
Martin Smith wrote:Incidentally, EURO is also a breed of kangaroo. At least in English, Apterous only has 1 Z, so PIZZA would never be played.
There are still plenty of variants where you could play PIZZA, though.