BEE CHAMPION GLENDALE SPELLER MAKES MOM THE LINGUIST PROUD.

Byline: Erik Nelson Staff Writer

Whether the other seventh- and eighth-graders studied, meditated or agonized over the words in the Daily News Regional Spelling Bee on Saturday, it was clear by the 13th round that they never had a chance against ``the Human Dictionary.''

Miriam Firunts of Eleanor Toll Middle School in Glendale stood in front of the microphone, smiled and tackled her winning word, ``charactonym'' - a name for a fictional character that suggests the character's distinctive trait - just as placidly as she did ``chocolate,'' ``tragic'' and ``halogen'' in the early rounds.

In the fifth round, ``tuberculosis'' was fired at the 12-year-old seventh-grader, and the Human Dictionary easily dodged the bullet.

``That was actually my nickname in elementary school: the Human Dictionary,'' she confessed later, adding that she aspires to be a writer and enjoys much more in life than spelling.

From May 28 to June 3, Miriam will get a chance to test her cool in Washington, D.C., where she will represent the Daily News at the Scripps Howard National Spelling Championship competition.

``I'm glad that I made my mother proud,'' Miriam said diplomatically. She said, however, ``I didn't feel challenged at all'' by the contest.

No wonder. The winner's mother, Sona, speaks four languages. Hakopian is a philologist, said her daughter, who automatically spelled the term for one who studies literary texts and linguistics.

Miriam herself is trilingual, speaking English, Armenian and Russian. The young champion also said she has a photographic memory.

Hakopian said after the bee that her daughter usually asks for the linguistic origin of a word she is learning to spell. ``Aggregate,'' for instance, which Miriam spelled in round 10, is of Latin origin, as is ``tincture,'' which the winner spelled correctly in the following round.

The spelling champion groused that her social life ``is completely gone'' because she spent so much time preparing for the bee, and she said she couldn't understand why people got so worked up over the contest. The runner-up, however, couldn't have been more pleased if she had won.

Ashley Zalewski of Luther Burbank Middle School spelled ``circumlunar,'' ``unmitigable'' and ``anecdote'' with little hesitation. But her attempt at ``succulent'' in the 11th round prompted the sound of the tabletop bell that spelled defeat.

``I was surprised that I got as far as I did,'' said the smiling silver-medal winner.

Ashley did quite a bit of studying, but ``I think she was kind of overconfident,'' said her father, Robert Zalewski. ``She rushed that last one,'' he added, and neglected to ask for a definition, origin and use in a sentence before attempting to spell the word.

There was always such a request from perhaps the most methodical of the contestants, Hovig Chahinian of the Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School of Hollywood.

He routinely said ``please'' when he asked the judges to repeat a word. But as soon as he heard the word ``sermonize,'' the audience at Taft High School in Woodland Hills could tell he had hit the wall - not associating the word with delivering a sermon.

He immediately leaned his head forward and rested it on the microphone, and the stern countenance he had carried into the seventh round dissolved into a look of despair.

``SOOR-moh-nize,'' he said, mispronouncing the word. So he spelled it S-U-R-M-I-N-E-I-S, and in a few seconds he heard the dreaded bell.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Sona Hakopian, left, hugs her child Miriam Firunts, who won the Daily News Regional Spelling Bee on Saturday.

Photo: Evan Yee/Staff Photographer

(2) Hovig Chahinian, a student at Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School, concentrates during the Daily News Regional Spelling Bee.

(3) Sue and Kenneth Kim of Winnetka watch anxiously as their son, Matthew, competes Saturday at Taft High School in Woodland Hills.