2019 National Champion Navneeth Murali (National Champion) of Edison, New Jersey
Navneeth Murali of Edison, N.J., was the national winner of the 2019 South Asian Spelling (SAS) Bee held Aug. 13 in New Jersey.
Murali, 13, spelled flype as flipe, yet was declared a winner. Flipe and flype are variant spellings according to Merriam-Webster’s Third Unabridged Dictionary.
Flipe means to strip off by or as if by peeling.
The SAS Bee was open to children up to 14 years of age and was held in five regional centers across the United States. Over 600 spellers from those centers participated from which 15 finalists took the stage at the finals.