Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a five-letter word.
Answer: LINGO
Correct entries: 322

Last week’s puzzle played like a true Week 3, so that was a good thing after the Really-A-Week-5 meta that preceded it.

First thing to notice, perhaps with a nudge from the title, is that you can add one letter to each theme entry so they end with the name of a language:

17-A [Hotel noisemakers] = ICE MACHINES; add an E to the end and its last letters spell CHINESE
25-A: [Like some DNA] = CHROMOSOMAL; add an I to the end and its last letters spell SOMALI
39-A: [Warship whose grisly story was memorably told in “Jaws”] = USS INDIANAPOLIS; add an H to the end and its last letters spell POLISH
48-A: [Graduates from college] = GETS A DEGREE; add a K to the end and its last letters spell GREEK
60-A: [Desserts often made with coconut milk] = VEGAN GELATI; add an N to the end and its last letters spell LATIN

Now what? Those added letters (EIHKN) look pretty random, so let’s focus on the languages. Lo and behold, there’s a famous person in the grid whose first language is one of our five:

Ang LEE — native Chinese speaker
IMAN — native Somali speaker
Pola NEGRI — native Polish speaker
GALEN — native Greek speaker
OVID — native Latin speaker

The first letter of those famous grid entries five spell contest answer LINGO, which is also the title of a delightful book about Europe’s languages.

KayW says:

BINGO!

(Well, she entered LINGO and then said “BINGO!” as a comment)

SarAndDrew hit a milestone:

our first perfect month!

And MaineMarge says:

Send us another picture of Ada please

Will do — here she is at one month, with big brother:

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is what those who figure out this meta are.