[Multilingual Monday] Scrabble
So a little while ago, I brought Carl to a havdalah dinner, held by YAD (the Young Adult Division) of the Jewish Federation here in town. While meeting the new shlixa, Vered, I had brought Hebrew Scrabble over to play (as it was game night).
The game is interesting for a few reasons, besides it being in Hebrew. In particular, the instructions inside the box are for the English version of the game. That's right, there are no specific directions for the Hebrew variant. This is particularly problematic, as what kinds of words/word forms are or aren't allowed, is not specified at all. Now, for those who aren't familiar with the Hebrew orthography, several prepositions and even the definitive article attach right onto the word. For clarification, let's use the the word רכבת rakevet, "train". Like English, the plural would be allowed, right? Thus, you would have רכבות rakavot, "trains." But about "the train"? In Hebrew it is one word - הרכבת harakevet. One could stack a few prefixes here and not have, technically, a second word, as seen in "and from the trains" - ומהרכבות vemeharakavot. Is it legal in this game? Who knows?? Clearly this was an issue, as seen in the upperleft-most word וקורה,vekore, "and it happens."
The letter distribution is also something that seems rather arbitrary to me. Apparently there have been multiple versions of this game, by multiple manufacturers. In the version I have, there are only one of several letters - ג ט כ צ all have one each, and all bu כ are inexplicably worth a lot of points. Now, one of the problems here, is that, unlike English with X and Q, there are no real "barely used" letters. While it's true that several are more common than others, you wouldn't be anywhere near as stuck coming up with words with ט, as you would words in English with an X.
A great write-up can be see seen here at thie Wikipedia article hat discusses letter distribution among various foreign-language versions of the game. Interesting to note is a few of the rules on blanks and using letters that aren't included in a given tile set (whereas some allow it, others do not). Interesting to note, particularly in the Welsh version:
The digraph PH, which exists in Welsh, is omitted because it is used almost exclusively in mutated words, which the rules disallow. K, Q, V, X and Z also do not exist in Welsh. Arguably J does not exist in Welsh either, but it is included as it is sometimes used for borrowed words.
Whether or not that answers my initial Hebrew version question? Who can say. Clearly there is a bit of an arbitrary nature between the sets!!