What language did the ancient Egyptians speak? Try our kids’ quiz

<span>Illustration: Hennie Haworth/The Guardian</span>
Illustration: Hennie Haworth/The Guardian
  1. Rawi, 7, asks: what language did the ancient Egyptians speak?

    1. They didn’t speak – they only wrote to each other in pictures called hieroglyphs

    2. Egyptian

    3. Arabic

    4. They spoke English but with an Egyptian accent

  2. Seba, 5, asks: where is the giant temple Angkor Wat?

    1. It is in Bali, Indonesia

    2. It is in Thailand

    3. It is in Australia

    4. It is in Cambodia

  3. Goldie, 7, asks: why do bats hang upside down?

    1. So that blood rushes to their head and helps them think straight

    2. So that if they want to fly, they just drop out of bed, open their wings and go

    3. They think that it’s really comfy hanging out like that

    4. They like making funny faces at each other upside down

  4. Gus, 6, asks: how big is the moon?

    1. The moon is the same width as Earth

    2. The moon is double the width of Earth

    3. It’s a quarter of the size of Earth in width

    4. It’s as big as five Earths put together

  5. Louis, 8, asks: how many muscles are there in the human body?

    1. It is not possible to count how many muscles as there are so many!

    2. About 650

    3. About 60

    4. About 6 million, but scientist think there could be even more than that

Solutions

1:B - They spoke Egyptian! Egyptian is a language that is no longer spoken, like Latin. The official language of modern Egypt is Arabic, but the ancient Egyptians spoke their language for 4,000 years – although it evolved a lot over that time., 2:D - Angkor Wat is a big stone temple, and considered to be the biggest religious structure in the world. It is in Cambodia and is a Hindu-Buddhist temple, built between the 9th and 12th centuries., 3:B - Scientists aren’t 100% sure why bats hang upside down, but this is the most likely theory. Bats need to fall in order to take off. They hang upside down when they’re resting so that when they need to fly, they just drop off their perch, open their wings and fly off., 4:C - The moon’s diameter is about 3,500 kilometres. The Earth is about four times wider than the moon, or, to put it another way, the moon is a quarter of the size of Earth in width., 5:B - There are roughly 650 muscles in the human body. They work with bones to help you move.

Scores

  1. 5 and above.

  2. 4 and above.

  3. 3 and above.

  4. 2 and above.

  5. 0 and above.

  6. 1 and above.

Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a podcast answering children’s questions. Do check out her books, Everything Under the Sun and the new Everything Under the Sun: Quiz Book.

Does your child have a question? Submit one here