Posted on 05/27/2016 12:18:13 AM PDT by Cronos
Nihar Janga, a fifth-grader from Austin, Texas, and Jairam Hathwar, a seventh-grader from Painted Post, New York, were named co-champions of the U.S. Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday after battling 25 rounds head to head.
The late-night duel twice saw Nihar, 11, fail to capitalize on mistakes by Jairam, 13, and claim the title outright.
They ended co-winners when Jairam nailed "feldenkrais," a method of education, and Nihar aced "gesellschaft," a type of social relationship.
Jairam and Nihar will each receive a $40,000 cash prize. The tie is the third in a row in the Bee, a U.S. institution since 1925. The contest had instituted a 25-round spell-off to try and avoid just such a deadlock.
Nihar dazzled the audience by his grasp of words. When given "biniou," he asked pronouncer Jacques Bailly, "Is that a Breton bagpipe?" then whizzed through it with head down, hands at side and shifting slightly foot to foot.
Given "taoiseach," he said, "Is that an Irish word for prime minister?" and nailed it, bringing cheers from the crowd.
...Jairam and Nihar are the ninth consecutive spellers of South Asian ancestry, and the 12th in 16 years, to win the Bee. Jairam's brother Sriram was the 2014 co-champion.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Congrats to both. But where the heck is Painted Post, NY?
None of the four words listed in that excerpt were actually English words. SO the English Spelling Bee is now an international spelling bee with words drawn from any language?
None of the four words listed in that excerpt were actually English words. SO the English Spelling Bee is now an international spelling bee with words drawn from any language?
Puts me in mind of a pretty funny black comedy that came out a while back, all about spelling bees and so on.
Can anybody recall the title?
A town of less than 2,000 west of Corning near the Pennsylvania border.
the problem with English is that it grabs words from other languages and so loses some kind of “connection” — for instance it takes Latin or French words or Irish and uses them, while Polish or Russian use homegrown words so you can understand the basis instead of guessing.
And Reuters thinks H-O-U-S-T-O-N on Nihar’s name tag spells “Austin.”
I totally agree, but we usually change the word in some way to show that it has been anglicized. Those words look like they are directly from the original.
You mean a chinese kid didn’t win? Racism.
I tutor lots of kids whose parents are Indian immigrants. The parents instill in them a strong drive to get a good education.
No it’s racism because it wasn’t given to some ‘gibmedat’. Like the way a nobel peace prize is.
about 1/2 hour from here... it's kinda suburb north of Corning NY
Anglicizing the words — I disagree, this doesn’t appear always, like tattoo.
25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
Akeelah and the Bee?
I noticed it wasn’t Smith, Jones, Gonzales, Gomez or Mohammed.
Sorry, took me a while to look it up.
The film is a black indie comedy entitled ‘Bad Words.’
Bit of a hoot.
They still have it wrong. Nihar Janga is from Leander ISD, which is north of Austin.
And I think the placard says Houston District, which if I remember correctly is the last district spelling bee held in Texas before the nationals.
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