Questions and Answers about
Languages
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in PlacesWhere is one most likely to be greeted, “Allinllachu”?
Answer: “Allinllachu” means hello in southern Quechua, the primary language in the Quechua linguistic family spoken mainly in Peru and Bolivia. Approximately 25% (7.7 million) of Peruvians speak a Quechuan language. Quechua variants are still widely spoken today, being the co-official language of many regions and the second most spoken language family in Peru. Quechua…
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in PoliticsWhat’s “status quo ante”?
Answer: Status quo ante is Latin for the state where (things were) before, usually the state of affairs before an upsetting development._x000D_
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in TVWhich language did Glenn Close learn for her role in “Tehran”?
Answer: Towards the new season of Apple TV+’s Tehran, premiering May 6, 2022, Glenn Close had to learn Farsi for her role as Marjan Montazeri, a British agent living in Tehran. The series revolves around an Israeli agent and computer hacker who is tasked with infiltrating an electric company in Iran.
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in FoodWhat’s a Charoset (or Haroset)?
Answer: Charoset (also spelled haroset) is one of the six symbolic foods on the Passover seder plate, usually made from apples, nuts, and red wine. The word charoset is derived from the Hebrew for clay (pronounced khe-res). It represents the matter used by the Old Testament’s enslaved Israelites to build Egyptian cities. Passover, which celebrates…
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in PlacesDoes the letter Z exist in the Cyrillic Russian alphabet?
Answer: The letter Z does not exist in the Cyrillic Russian alphabet. Yet, Z has become the main symbol of public support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Observers first spotted the mysterious Z-shaped letter hand-painted on Russian tanks massed on the Ukrainian border in Feb. 2022. On March 4, 2022, thousands of Serbs waving Russian…
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in PoliticsWhen British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace says Putin has gone “full tonto” over Ukraine, what does he mean?
Answer: When someone goes “full tonto” in English slang, he’s acting like a lunatic. The term, a former name of various subgroups of the Apache people, literally means “foolish” in Spanish. UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said on Feb. 23, 2022, that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had gone “full tonto” over Ukraine by invading it.…