History of Words
What "apology" means, according to the definition of its original Greek form.
A speech in defense of sth (an official excuse)
Most often used word in the English language.
Recite John 1:1 (NIV).
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
(In reality, all the major versions that i've checked have the same wording, probably because it's so simple.)
The condition of being unable to talk in certain situations, although being physically capable of speech.
Selective mutism (accept "situational mutism")
What the "iah"/"jah" or "jo" in Hebrew names (e.g. Joshua, Elijah, Isaiah, ) stands for.
YHWH (accept "Yahweh", "Jehovah"; do not accept "God")
The hippocampus (area in the brain) is named for its resemblance to this creature.
Seahorse (do not accept "hippocampus", the current English usage of which refers to a different (nonexistent) animal)
Longest nontechnical and noncontrived word in the English language.
+25 for definition, +50 for correct number of morphemes
Antidisestablishmentarianism (n.): the quality of being opposed to the removal of privileges from a church
(must be spelled or pronounced correctly for pts)
6 morphemes: anti•dis•establish•ment•arian•ism
Technical term for the four letters YHWH.
Tetragrammaton
Composer of the series of short piano pieces known as Lieder ohne Worte (Songs without Words).
Felix Mendelssohn
Greek form (what's written on his baptism certificate) of Mozart's middle name Amadeus.
+25 for meaning; +25 for writing in Greek; +50 for German form, which he also used, among others; +25 for favored form
Theophilus (Greek "Θεόφιλος", accept with no accents): friend of God, love of God, or loved by God, etc.
German form: Gottlieb
Favored form: Amade/é/è (French)
Of "Kamehameha!" (energy attack from the Dragon Ball series) and the Kamehameha butterfly (species endemic to Hawaii), the naming of _____ came first.
+25 for being able to write "Kamehameha!" in the correct form in Japanese
The Kamehameha butterfly (both named after the Kamehameha dynasty, which consisted of a handful of kings named Kamehameha) (did you know that there's actually a bunch of Japanese people in Hawaii for some reason)
かめはめ波！(hiragana + kanji)
Language in which "Merry Christmas" transliterates to "Mele Kalikimaka"
+75 for each requirement in transliterating to this language
Hawaiian
1. phoneme replacement (Hawaiian only has 12 phonemes)
2. vowel harmony (changing to match previous, if in the same class)
3. (C)V syllable structure (no double consonants)
Greek term used in the New Testament translated as "brothers" in the phrase "my brothers".
+75 for specifying case, +25 for writing in Greek
Adelphoi (Greek "αδελφοι") (like in Romance languages, this can also refer to a mixed-gender group)
Case: nominative (accept "subject" if feeling magnanimous)
In Simon & Garfunkel's The Sound of Silence, people talk without doing this.
speaking
Two seemingly distinct biblical names that can actually be traced back to being the same name. (ex. Jesus is a Greek form of the name Yeshua, which is a short form of Yehoshua, which is Joshua. You may not use this pair as an answer.)
There might be some more, but these are the ones that i can think of off the top of my head:
1. Anna is the Greek form of Hanna, or Hannah
2. James is from Latin Iacomus, a form of Iacobus, which is Jacob
3. idk that's it. as stated, there may be others. please check before deducting points.
4. Ananias and Hananiah
5. Peter and Cephas (through translation)
6. Dorcas and Tabitha (through translation)
7. Joses and Joseph
8. Silas and Saul (disputed)
9. Zacchaeus and Zaccai
Language in which the term "turkey" (or a cognate of which), in reference to the bird as a namesake of the country, first appeared.
English
Old English term for the color "orange" before becoming obsolete.
+100 for correct O.E. spelling
Yellow-red (O.E. "ġeolurēad", accept with no accents) (do not accept "red-yellow")
Name this Hebrew letter (א) and specify its position within the Hebrew abjad, numerical value, and significance to the phrase "I Am who I Am" (Exodus 3:14).
+100 for specifying its usage in modern-day mathematics.
Aleph (accept "alef"), the first letter, 1, begins the three words making up the phrase
Denotes aleph numbers, which are a sequence of transfinite numbers defining the number of terms in various infinite sets.
Why Ariel (the little mermaid, not whatever dude had the name in the Bible) was dumb.
Full points for any acceptable explanation involving why she was both mute and moronic, in which case the term "dumb" is entirely fitting.
Half points for any acceptable explanation involving only why she was moronic.
No points for explanations only relatable to the original Little Mermaid from Denmark.
The character in traditional Chinese (and some Chinese-copying cultures') given names shared between all sons and/or daughters of a generation. (ex. in the names 倪本玛 (Ni Benma) and 倪本亚 (Ni Benya), 本 (ben) is the _____.)
Generation name
Two of the following forms of transportation that share a common word ancestor:
airplane, car, horse, ship, train
+100 for the name of the linguistic law stating why/how they diverged, +another 100 for a more in-depth explanation
Car and horse (both from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *kers, "to run"), making them doublets.
Diverged according to Grimm's Law.
"Car" was borrowed from Old Northern French (Norman) during the Norman Conquest; Italic (and by extension Romance) languages retain the /k/ phoneme from PIE. "Horse" descends directly from Proto-Germanic, in which the /k/ from PIE always becomes /h/, according to Grimm's Law; this consonant change is also seen in the Italic/Germanic cognates "corn" (e.g. from "unicorn" or "cornucopia")/"horn", "canis"/"hound", and "quod"/"what".
Five languages in which the Pope tweets (nine total).
+100 for each additional language (unless you get one wrong, in which case you get –(500+100n), where n=number of bonus guesses), +25 for specifying the language with the most followers
Any five (or more) of the following: English, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Polish, Arabic.
Most followers: Spanish (obviously)
(Possible number of points for this question range from –900 to 925)
Greek word(s) for love that Jesus used when asking Peter three times whether he loved him (John 21:15–17).
+100 for order in which the words are used, if there's more than one; +25 for each writing in Greek
Agape (1+2) and philia (3) (Greek "ἀγάπη" and "φιλία", accept with no accents): unconditional love and love between friends
The only truly successfully-revived dead language.
Hebrew (died out as a spoken language in 200–400 CE, revived in late 1800s)
Egyptian nuke-looking hieroglyph indicating that the enclosed name belongs to a royal.
+50 for original language of this term
Cartouche (French)