Language Families
Last updated: 10 November 2026
Which family is their main language in?
This is a Tier it, not a rank from highest to lowest. Several countries can share a tier. The measure is Family of the main or state language. The tiers on this card are Indo-European, Uralic, Turkic, Mongolic. You drop each country into a tier and lock it in. A right tier locks. A wrong one turns red. You get five tries.
Iran sorts with Germany because Persian is Indo-European, written in the Arabic script, while Arabic is Semitic. Hungary, Finland and Estonia are Uralic, beside Indo-European neighbors. Turkish and Kazakh are both Turkic, and Kazakh is still mainly written in Cyrillic, so it looks Slavic. Mongolia writes Mongolian in Cyrillic too, and Mongolian is Mongolic, so the script is the trap: it is not Slavic, and it is not Turkic like Kazakh. Vietnam's Latin letters are Austroasiatic, and Malta's are Afroasiatic, the same alphabet trap, and neither is on this board.
Who sits in which tier
| Country | Tier |
|---|---|
| Germany | Indo-European |
| Iran | Indo-European |
| Estonia | Uralic |
| Finland | Uralic |
| Hungary | Uralic |
| Kazakhstan | Turkic |
| Turkey | Turkic |
| Mongolia | Mongolic |
Indo-European: Germany, Iran. Uralic: Hungary, Finland, Estonia. Turkic: Turkey, Kazakhstan. Mongolic: Mongolia.
Germany and Iran share the Indo-European tier because the fact says Persian is Indo-European even though it is written in the Arabic script, while Arabic itself is Semitic. Hungary, Finland, and Estonia share the Uralic tier, beside Indo-European neighbors. Turkey and Kazakhstan share the Turkic tier. The fact says Kazakh is still mainly written in Cyrillic, which is why it looks Slavic, and that a 2017 decree ordered a Latin alphabet with the deadline later moved to 2031. Mongolia is alone in the Mongolic tier. The fact says Mongolia also writes Mongolian in Cyrillic, so the script is the trap: Mongolian is not Slavic and it is not Turkic. The fact names Vietnamese as Austroasiatic and Maltese as Semitic, inside Afroasiatic, and says both use the Latin alphabet, but neither is a chip on this eight-country card.
The source line is: Glottolog: German and Persian are Indo-European, Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian are Uralic, Turkish and Kazakh are Turkic, and Khalkha Mongolian is Mongolic. Mongolic is its own family, not a branch of Turkic. Wikipedia, Kazakh alphabets: Cyrillic is the script used in Kazakhstan; a 2017 decree ordered a Latin alphabet and in 2021 the deadline moved to 2031. Wikipedia, Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet: the script used for Mongolian in Mongolia. Persian is written in a Perso-Arabic alphabet. Vietnamese is Austroasiatic and Maltese is Semitic, inside Afroasiatic; both use the Latin alphabet and are named only in the fact. Nothing on this page adds a country or a tier that the puzzle does not already list. https://glottolog.org/