The Game of LinguiSHTIK®

Students Playing LinguiSHTIK

LinguiSHTIK is an academic game played with cubes on which are imprinted various letters of the alphabet. There is also a mat containing two Sections: Letters and Demands. Play proceeds as follows.

1. One of the three players in the match shakes and rolls the cubes and orders the letters on the tops of the cubes so that all three players may see them.
2. The first player (the shaker) then chooses a Sentence Pattern (e.g., Subject-Verb or Subject-Verb-Object or Subject-Linking Verb-Predicate Adjective) that will ultimately be written by all three players.
3. The second player (to the left of the shaker) then chooses a part of speech that each player will have to form.
4. The third player then stipulates how that part of speech will be used in the sentence (e.g., a noun to be used as the Subject, or an Adjective to be used as a Predicate Adjective). Thus each of the three players has had some hand in stipulating the guidelines for that shake.
5. The move is back to the first player. From this point on, each player in turn may play one of the cubes to the mat in either the Letters section or the Demands section.
• If the cube is added to the Letters section, the letter on the top of that cube is available to be used in the word that is to be formed (for example, the B played is now available for the Noun specified by player two).
• If the cube is added to the Demands section, the letter on the top of the cube is Forbidden to be used in the word AND the moving player may add a Demand to the word, such as "Must be exactly four letters", or "Must contain the letter T."
6. Players continue to add cubes to the mat until one of the players feels there are enough letters available to make the word specified (e.g., the Noun).
7. All players then attempt to form a word and use it in a sentence in the prescribed way (e.g., the subject of a Noun-Verb-Object sentence). Punctuation and spelling must be correct.

Players involved in LinguiSHTIK improve their grammar, sentence construction, vocabulary, spelling. Of course, high school players are allowed to use more complex words and grammar (gerunds, participles, passive voice verbs, etc. than the Elementary and Middle Division players.

LinguiSHTIK is available from Wff-N-Proof.