- Alcaraz breezes into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Gaza cultural heritage brought to light in Geneva
- 'Bullet for democracy': Trump returns to site of rally shooting
- Italy targets climate activists in 'anti-Gandhi' demo clampdown
- South Korean cult-horror series 'Hellbound' returns at BIFF
- Nepalis fear more floods as climate change melts glaciers
- Honduras arrests environmentalist's alleged murderer
- Padres pitcher Musgrove needs elbow surgery
- Supreme Court lets stand rules to curb mercury, methane emissions
- Boston beat Denver in NBA exhibition season opener, but Jokic says omens are good
- Chagos diaspora angry at lack of input on islands' fate
- Biden says 'not confident' of peaceful US election
- US trade chief defends tariff hikes when paired with investment
- Lukaku stars as Napoli beat Como to hold Serie A top spot
- Ohtani set for MLB playoff debut as Dodgers face Padres
- Pogba's drug ban cut to 18 months from four years
- Devine leads New Zealand to big win over India in Women's T20 World Cup
- Bosnia floods kill 16 people
- EU court blocks French ban on vegetable 'steak' labelling
- Prosecutors seek dismissal of rape charges against French rugby players
- Meta AI turns pictures into videos with sound
- Bolivia's Morales says claims he raped a minor are a 'lie'
- MLB Reds hire two-time champion Francona as manager
- Daniel Maldini receives first Italy call-up for Nations League
- US dockworkers return to ports after three-day strike
- Ancelotti points finger at Madrid's 'lack of intensity'
- Haiti reeling after 70 killed in gang attack
- Five Czech kids in hospital over TikTok 'piercing challenge'
- What happens next in Iran-Israel conflict?
- Country star Garth Brooks denies rape accusations
- Stubbs hits maiden century as South Africa make 343-4 against Ireland
- DR Congo to begin mpox vaccination campaign Saturday in east
- Odegaard injury has forced Arsenal to be 'different', says Arteta
- Ratcliffe refuses to guarantee Ten Hag's Man Utd future
- Meta must limit data use for targeted ads: EU court
- Mauritius to hold legislative election on November 10
- Britain qualify for America's Cup final after 60-year wait
- IMF asks Sri Lanka to protect hard-won gains
- Morata returns to Spain Nations League squad after injury
- Irish regulator to probe Ryanair use of facial recognition
- Public allowed to see video evidence in France mass rape trial
- US hiring soars past expectations in sign of resilient market
- Under-fire Ten Hag 'together' with Man Utd hierarchy
- Guardiola talks of Man City love affair as financial hearing rumbles on
- De Bruyne out of Belgium Nations League squad
- Japanese trainer Yahagi hopes Shin Emperor achieves 50-year-old Arc dream
- UK's Starmer hails 'landmark' carbon capture funding
- As EU targets Chinese cars, European rivals sputter
- Bosnia floods kill 14 people
- Tennis world number one Swiatek splits with coach Wiktorowski
The race is on to translate viral app Wordle
Wordle, the simple word game that has taken the English-speaking world by storm, is sparking spontaneous efforts to develop similar games for other languages.
The English-language app poses a simple puzzle: it thinks of a five-letter word and challenges the user to guess what it is in six tries or fewer. The magic formula has persuaded the New York Times to open its wallet and buy the app.
Versions have sprung up in every corner of the globe, covering anything from German to Urdu.
And Hong Kong linguistics professor Lau Chaak-ming reckons he has cracked a Cantonese version.
He developed a game using "jyutping", a method of transliterating Cantonese into the Western alphabet.
"One day during a breakfast, my colleague suggested why don't you make a jyutping version? We then read out the words on the menu and realised that a lot of phrases contain five letters," he told AFP.
He said his creation, known as Zidou, was just a bit of fun at first.
"I thought it would be great if there were a few hundred people playing it. But it surprised me that more than 10,000 or even 100,000 people have played this game. I'm quite happy."
- Hebrew 'harder' -
Israeli mathematician Amir Livne Bar-on admits he got swept up by the English version of Wordle, but also admits that he was not very good at it.
"I think it's because English is not my mother tongue," he said.
"So I wanted a similar game in Hebrew that I could play and enjoy."
When he set about trying to create a Hebrew version, though, he realised it would be a different game.
"Hebrew words are much denser and have far fewer double letters and vowels," he said.
"So even though Hebrew has fewer words, there are way more words containing five letters, so it's harder."
Nevertheless, he says the Hebrew game is proving popular among young people, particularly in the Tel Aviv area.
"It made me most happy when people tell me that the game broke their quarantine routine, that it made them more at ease during this Omicron wave."
- Maori challenges -
If the complexity of the language posed problems for a native speaker like Bar-on, then Wayne McDougall faced an even stiffer challenge in developing a version in the Maori language Te Reo.
"I am not a Te Reo speaker, but when I was on Twitter I saw someone say how good it would be to have a Te Reo version of Wordle," he told AFP.
"And I thought: 'Yes, it would be good. Someone should do that.' And then no one did."
So McDougall thought he would take on the challenge.
"The main challenges in developing a Te Reo version were processing the Maori alphabet with a limited number of consonants and vowels," he said.
It was also a struggle to find a list of words and their definitions.
But he persevered, and says the Maori-speaking community has been "amazingly supportive".
"I was afraid that I was intruding on other people's territory, the language is in some way a cultural treasure, but all the support has been positive and welcoming."
European languages are perhaps less of a challenge, with many versions cropping up across social media.
Louan Bengmah, a 21-year-old web developer, got in on the action by creating a French variant.
"We had quite a few debates about which words to use, finally we agreed to use the words from the Scrabble dictionary," he said.
Bengmah streamed some of his efforts on the Twitch platform and got help from other coders, making the whole process sound quite straightforward.
"It was all finished in a weekend," he said.
P.Serra--PC