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IOL 2004 Problem #3 Latin
Consider fourteen Latin words and their English translations:
| barba | beard | vidua | widow |
| dīvidit | he divides | mordāx | biting |
| fūmus | smoke | glabra | hairless |
| fracēs | sediment | falx | sickle |
| fovēre | to heat | rubrīca | red paint |
| mandere | to chew | mediocris | moderate |
| verbum | word | fingo | I sculpt |
Linguists believe that in ancient times all these words except one contained the dh sound (d pronounced with an aspiration). Later, dh was replaced by other sounds.
Consider the four English words cognate to four of the Latin words given above:
| beard | word |
| widow | red |
(a) Indicate the Latin word of the above list that never contained the dh sound. Explain your solution.
(b) Consider six more Latin words:
| brevis | short | gurdus | silly |
| frīgus | cold | unda | wave |
| combrētum | reed | dēbeo | I owe |
Which one of these words are sure to have never contained the dh sound? Why?
⚠ Latin x is pronounced like English x as in ox; the dash over vowels indicates that they are long.
—Svetlana A. Burlak, Ilya B. Itkin