Hot in Any Language Trivia Quiz

Answer: German

Other German words for candlestick include der Kerzenhalter and der Kerzenständer. German is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, being the first language for in excess of 100 million people. It is the most commonly used language in the European Union after English. It is an official language in six countries; Austria, Belgium, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

This question was ignited by Phoenix Rising team member pollucci19.

Answer: Swahili

Kenya has a booming (or is that blooming?) flower industry - so much so that it has been called "the flower garden of Europe". It is the third largest producer of cut flowers in the world, and its exports account for around 35% of flowers sold in the European Union. In fact, the Netherlands sources two-thirds of all its cut flowers from Kenya. The industry contributes more than a whopping 25% to Kenya's GDP.

Berber is spoken only in Morocco and Algeria, Somali is the language of Somalia, and Tigrinya is spoken in Eritrea. Swahili, or Kiswahili as it is also known, is an official language in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda.

This question bloomed in the fertile mind of Phoenix Rising member VegemiteKid.

Answer: Goraca

Warsaw is the capital of Poland so we are looking for a Polish word. A clue was the "cz" in "czekolada", a feature of central European languages and usually pronounced "ch" as in "check".

"Goraca", "caldo", "caliente", and "chaud" are the Polish, Italian, Spanish and French words respectively for "Hot". The Polish word is usually denoted with an ogenek or "little tail" underneath it .

There are 32 letters in the Polish alphabet: 9 vowels and 23 consonants. Use of diacritical marks is important. Polish poses some difficulty for English speakers because of grouping of letters, particularly consonants like "sz", "rz" which are always pronounced in the same way. Likewise the use of "y" is overused compared with English but this letter is the equivalent of the vowel "i" in English.

Polish is spoken by approximately 40 million people as their first language and a few more million as a second language in adjacent counties. Other places outside Poland that have a large Polish population are New York City, Chicago, Toronto, London, Buffalo, Melbourne and Baltimore.

This question was developed by Phoenix Rising team member 1nn1 over a cup of hot chocolate to ward off the chill of an Australian winter which is nowhere near the coldness of spring in Poland.

Answer: Sun

"Mata hari", or "matahari" as it is usually written, is a compound word that means "sun" in English. The word "mata" means "eye", while the word "hari" means "day".

The Dutch dancer was born Margaretha Zelle. She lived in Indonesia for a time after her marriage and adopted the name Mata Hari when she joined a local dance group. The Malay Language, or variants of it, is widely spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.

This question was spied by Phoenix Rising team member purelyqing.

Answer: Desert

Kurdistan is located in Upper Mesopotamia, and the Kurds speak an Iranian language, known as Kurdish. There are several dialects of Kurdish spoken, the Northern Kurdish variety being the most common. There are a total of around 20-30 million native speakers of the various dialects.

Don't mistake the Kurdish word 'pasiv' for the word desert (col) - it is the word for dessert! The word 'kangaroo' in Kurdish is kenguru, while 'bath' is serso, and 'grill' is sorkirin.

Still getting the sand out of her toes is the creator of this question, Phoenix Rising member VegemiteKid.

Answer: Croatian

Croatian is an official language in the Republic of Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovinia as well as the regions of Vojvodnia in Serbia, Burgenland in Austria and Molise in Italy. It is a variety of the Serbo-Croatian language, based on the Shtokavian dialect and its written form is based on Gaj's Latin Alphabet.

The film "Volcano", released in 1997, stars Tommy Lee Jones. In Icelandic, the title would have been "Eldfjall", "Sumendi" in Basque and "Lua Pele" in Hawaiian.

This question erupted from the pen of Phoenix Rising team member pollucci19.

Answer: Hot spring

"Onsen" is the Japanese word for "hot spring". It is also used to refer to resorts that are built around hot springs.

To cook onsen egg, or onsen tamago (onsen = hot spring, tamago = egg), the traditional way, the egg is immersed in hot spring water (at about 70 degrees C, 158 degrees F) for about half an hour or longer. The egg white should turn out silky and the yolk should have a custard-like texture. Although the method sounds easy, it is difficult to achieve in the kitchen.

This question was poached by Phoenix Rising team member purelyqing.

Answer: Yes

Hawaiian and Maori (the latter usually denoted with a macron above the "a') languages are two of the Austronesian language family.. They are closely related to other Polynesian languages, such as Tongan Samoan, Marquesan, Tahitian, and Rapa Nui ( Easter Island). Compare this vast area with language homogeneity compared with the 250+ aboriginal languages that existed on the Australian continent. Captain Cook had a Tahitian, Tupaia, accompany the voyage in 1769-1770, who communicated effectively with Maori

The Hawaiian alphabet contains 13 letters: Five vowels (a, e, i, o, u) and seven consonants (h, k, l, m, n, p, w) as well as a glottal stop. The Maori language has the same character set but two extra: "ng" sounds like the "ng" in the English "sing" and "wh" . In both languages, vowels have a long and short form and diphthongs occur in both languages.

This question was fired up by 1nn1 who has enjoyed a fire and a "ahi" on beaches in both New Zealand and Hawaii.

Answer: Stew Pot

Native to France and now spoken, as a native language, by over 75 million people world-wide French is one of the Romance languages. Whilst this really means that it is a Romanic language it looks a bit incongruous to see it entitled "romance" when it has descended from Vulgar Latin.
To remove any confusion about the book's title, in the 1937 film "The Life of Emile Zola", the novel's title is recorded as "Piping Hot". Zola's story focuses on the disparate lives within a Parisian apartment block. He sees the apartment as a cauldron (pot) that holds a variety of ingredients (stew). There is no clear translation of "Pot-Bouille" into the English language and, possibly, the closest that Zola is trying to convey is a "melting pot".

This question was brought to a boil by Phoenix Rising team member pollucci19.

Answer: Finnish

Estonia is considered one of three Baltic states along with Latvia and Lithuania, often considered as a group because of geographical proximity and similar histories with Russian/Soviet occupation. However Estonia identifies as a Scandinavian country rather a Baltic nation. Its language has much in common with Finnish (Helsinki is a mere two hours by ferry from Tallinn). A feature of both languages, part of the Finno-Ugric languages is the use of double vowels to indicate the vowel sound is long. The other major Finno-Ugric language is Hungarian.

This question was written on a ferry by Phoenix Rising team member 1nn1.