ADVERTISEMENTA man who does not speak a word of French has won the French-language Scrabble World Championship.
Nigel Richards from New Zealand beat a French-speaking Gabonese in the final in Louvain, Belgium.
Richards is said to have learned the French Dictionary and conjugations in just nine weeks earlier this year.
He has already won the English-language version of the title two times in 2007 and 2011.
Scrabble is a board game played by two to four players. It is played on a board of grid cells which each takes a single letter. It has certain squares that multiply the number of points awarded.
The game was invented in 1938 and was originally called Criss-Crosswords by American architech Alfred Mosher Butts.
The game’s big break came allegedly when the president of Macy’s department store played the game while on holiday. When he returned he found that his store did not stock the game and subsequently placed a large order.
It is currently sold in 121 countries and available in 29 languages. More than 150 million sets have been sold worldwide.