About Languagle
It's like Wordle, but instead you've got to guess a language. Every day you'll see some text, and you have to work out what language it is. Each guess gives you a clue: an arrow pointing to where the language is mostly spoken, and how close you are.
Who makes it
Languagle is a solo project curated by Matt Scotting. I've put together a 500-day schedule of phrases, expressions, idioms and proverbs from all the major spoken languages. My hope is that it gets shared and enjoyed by everyone who's into daily challenges.
How it started
Me and my best mates go on holiday every year, and we always end up playing a load of daily geography games. We started with Wordle, then it was Flagle, then Travle, GeoGrid, WhenTaken, MapTap... there's loads. I'm a designer, I'd always wanted to make a game, and I'm into trying to learn other languages, so a geography game about languages felt like the one to make.
I designed it and picked every phrase, and built it with Claude, an AI tool.
Stuff I've noticed
- Any day with an Indian language catches everyone out, because there are so many to pick from.
- None of my friends got the Burundi one (Rundi, #8), which was cool.
- I got Navajo (#69) in one, and my mate on the train was like, "how the hell did you get that in one?" I just laughed.
- I'm starting to pick up little rules now, like certain letters and accents in the Latin alphabet that give away where a language comes from, which is quite cool.
New to it?
It's not as hard as it looks, and it's pretty addictive after a while. Don't miss the bonus round either: once you've finished, you can try ordering a coffee in the day's language.
You can also copy your results and send them to someone. It's one click, then go to any chat and paste it, and it sends your score and a link to the game.
Where the phrases come from
The game draws on more than 590 phrases across over 180 languages. Most are traditional proverbs; where a language's proverbs were never reliably written down, it uses a short line of recorded oral poetry, a well-known word, or an everyday phrase instead, and says so.
Every phrase is checked before it goes into the game:
- It has a real source. Old published proverb collections, university and dictionary sources, and national language bodies come first. Each phrase links to where it came from, on the day and in the archive.
- It's written the way native speakers write it, in the language's own script, and the translation is checked against the source.
- No made-up proverbs. The internet is full of fake proverbs credited to small languages, mostly from quote sites and cheap books. I don't use those, and if nobody knows where a phrase came from, the page says so.
How the daily puzzle works
There is one puzzle a day for everyone, and it changes at midnight UTC. The running order is planned in advance: the first weeks lean towards languages a new player can win, the difficulty builds over the months after that, and the same distinctive script never comes up twice in one week. The full rules and what the coloured clues mean are on the How to Play page.
Once a day has been played, its answer, phrase, translation and background are added to the answer archive, which grows by one entry every day.
Free to play
Languagle has no accounts, no sign-up and no paywall. Your streak and stats stay on your own device (the privacy policy has the details). Advertising on the site helps pay for running it.
Get in touch
I care about this and I'd like it to do well, so if you spot a mistake in a phrase or a translation, tell me. Same if you speak a language that's in the game, or one you'd like to see added. I read everything.
Email: mattscottingdesign@gmail.com
Community: r/LanguagleGame on Reddit