Recently someone emailed me this text. It seems to make no sense.
mina ireti ir thandiwe hyn đánh_đố elektron_pochta vyklyk
skip uig & urd
use gtr
What does this email say?
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
2
-
2$\begingroup$ ask Alan Turing, I heard he's pretty good at these $\endgroup$– JingleBellsJun 16, 2020 at 7:18
-
1$\begingroup$ @Jingle too late now lol $\endgroup$– mattJun 16, 2020 at 14:15
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
$\begingroup$
$\endgroup$
3
Firstly, the last two lines are
Instructions.
In particular, I think use gtr means "use Google Translate" and,
skip uig & urd means to "skip Uyghur and Urdu" (languages)
Reasoning
The reason I come to this conclusion is that each term in the first line is a word translated from another language and all of the languages used are from the end of the list on Google Translate (which lists languages alphabetically), hence the instruction to "skip Uyghur and Urdu".
Translation
Translating the words in the first line is the tricky part but if we start at Zulu and work backwards from each word we get the following (ignoring Western Frisian):
mina = me/I (Zulu)
ireti = hope (Yoruba)
ir = you (Yiddish)
thandiwe = dear/beloved/loved (Xhosa)
hyn = this (Welsh)
đánh_đố = puzzling (Vietnamese)
elektron_pochta = e-mail (Uzbek)
vyklyk = challenge (Ukrainian)
The final reading is this:
I hope you loved this puzzling e-mail challenge
OP note: I didn't realize I skipped Western Frisian... an error on my part
answered Jun 16, 2020 at 14:55
-
$\begingroup$ Close, but don’t use the detect language feature. Start at Zulu, then go backwards manually and skip Uyghur and Urdu. $\endgroup$– mattJun 16, 2020 at 15:00
-
$\begingroup$ @matt Thanks for the tip, I think I've got it now. $\endgroup$– hexominoJun 16, 2020 at 15:10
-
$\begingroup$ Didn't know I skipped Western Frisian, but you got it! $\endgroup$– mattJun 16, 2020 at 16:59