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Mystery Phrase: Guess the Language
Guess the language from one phrase, with clues for family, script and distance.
How to play
A phrase appears in a mystery language. You have six guesses. After each wrong guess you see three colour clues: whether your guess is in the same language family (green for the same branch, amber for the same family), whether it uses the same writing system, and how far away it is, with a compass arrow pointing from your guess towards the answer.
Difficulty
Easy uses 8 well-known languages and shows the romanisation and English meaning. Medium uses 25 languages and still shows both. Hard uses every language on the site and shows only the native script, with no translation.
Scoring
You score 7 minus the number of guesses you used, so a first-guess win is 6 and a sixth-guess win is 1. Failing scores 0.
Daily puzzle, unlimited mode and challenges
Easy, Medium and Hard each have their own daily puzzle, the same for everyone and renewed at midnight UTC. A tick on the tab means you have finished it. Unlimited gives endless fresh puzzles at the difficulty you choose. After a game you can copy your result or challenge a friend to the same puzzle.
Phrases are cross-checked against independent sources but still await a native-speaker review. Language sources.
Questions
How are the clues worked out?
Family comes from the standard classification of each language. Script is the writing system. Distance is measured between the core regions of the two languages. Distance is only a guide to where a language began, not a claim about borders.
Can the answer be the same phrase in two languages?
We skip puzzles where another language in the pool has the identical text, so there is always exactly one right answer.
Is it free, and do I need an account?
It is free and needs no sign-up. The site sets no cookies. Daily results, streaks and personal bests are saved only in your own browser.
How does Challenge a friend work?
When you finish, tap Challenge a friend, optionally type a name (up to 12 characters) and send the link. It holds the game, difficulty, puzzle, your name and score, so your friend plays the same puzzle and sees who won. Nothing is stored on a server.