NACLO 2026 - Problem DWitsuwit’en Word Salad
Open round | 10 points | N/A | Problem statement | Official solution | Tags: Phrase translationSemantics
Phrases here are either 2 or 3 words long. The first word almost never repeats, so it's likely the thing being eaten. The second word only has the following options: yini’alh, yi’alh, nildïlh, hildïlh. It appears that yini’alh = yi’alh + -ni-, and nildïlh = hildïlh + -ni- (with some other change that deletes the hi-). Therefore, arrange them into a grid and see which foods co-occur with each verb.
| yi’alh | hildïlh | |
|---|---|---|
| ∅ | dried fish (thick) soup moose meat slice of bread carrot | sugar leaves (e.g., kale) (ground) pepper cornflakes strips of bacon |
| -ni- | potato turnip blueberry head of lettuce | (hard-boiled) eggs onions |
Everything in the -ni- row is spherical, while nothing in the ∅ row is. So the -ni- infix means "eating something spherical". "yi’alh" occurs with singular stuff (including "a single blueberry"), while hildïlh appears with plural stuff (sugar and pepper are measured in "grains" and one obviously eats many grains).
So:
1. mashed potatoes (singular, not spherical - it's mashed!) = yi’alh
2. french fries (plural, not spherical) = hildïlh
3. potato chip (singular, not spherical) = yi’alh
4. stalks of rhubarb (plural, not spherical) = hildïlh
5. sausages (plural, not spherical) = hildïlh
6. cracker (singular, not spherical) = yi’alh
7. cherries (plural, spherical) = nildïlh
8. hazelnut (singular, spherical) = yini’alh
9. cranberries (plural, spherical) = nildïlh
10. tomato (singular, spherical) = yini’alh