Arvind Mahankali wins spelling bee with Yiddish word
- Published
Arvind Mahankali has come third in the last two contests
A 13-year-old New York boy has won the Scripps National Spelling Bee with the Yiddish word "knaidel".
Correctly spelling the German-derived word for a dumpling served in soup, Arvind Mahankali outlasted 11 others in two hours of televised competition to win $30,000 (£19,718) on Thursday.
Arvind had finished in third place for the last two years, beaten each time by German-derived words.
He is the 11th Indian American to win the spelling bee in the last 15 years.
After he correctly spelled the final word, he smiled and cracked his knuckles as confetti rained down on stage, then lifted a large trophy above his head.
The audience gasped loudly when Arvind got his first German-derived word of the evening. He had to spell "dehnstufe", an Indo-European long-grade vowel.
"I had begun to be a little wary of German words, but this year I prepared German words and I studied them, so when I got German words this year, I wasn't worried," Arvind told the Associated Press.
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Arvind said he would now turn his attention to maths and physics competitions.