Omniglot - the blog

Language quiz

Simon on 04 Feb 2007

Language and Quiz questions | Comments (16)

16 Responses to “Language quiz”

1. Bob on 04 Feb 2007 at 9:49 pm #

   I can’t get the recording to work, but a language (one of many) with its own alphabet in Asia is Mongolian.

2. Paul on 05 Feb 2007 at 12:49 pm #

   Oh, Simon! “it’s” own alphabet …! Tut tut.

3. Joseph Staleknight on 05 Feb 2007 at 12:58 pm #

   I don’t have volume on here, so I’m guessing based only on the clues. It’s…Korean!

4. TJ on 05 Feb 2007 at 5:53 pm #

   I think Bob and Joseph got the 2 possibilities that I had in my mind!
   I don’t hear much nasalization in the spoken words in this audio, so I don’t think it can be something like Thai or Cambodian!

5. Declan on 05 Feb 2007 at 6:10 pm #

   Did Simon correct the mistake?

6. Simon on 05 Feb 2007 at 6:45 pm #

   Declan - yes, I corrected the mistake. I noticed it while I was typing the post, but forgot to change it before pressing the publish button.

   The language is neither Mongolian, Korean, Thai nor Cambodian, though the last two are spoken in the same part of Asia as the mystery language.

7. Larry Epke on 05 Feb 2007 at 8:59 pm #

   Then is it Lao?

8. AR on 05 Feb 2007 at 9:03 pm #

   I don’t get what’s wrong with the “its”. Here in America, we are taught to use “its” as the possessive case of “it”, and “it’s” for the contraction of “it is”.

9. Chibi on 05 Feb 2007 at 10:01 pm #

   He fixed it already :P It was originally “it’s”

   I’m guessing Burmese.

10. Mike on 05 Feb 2007 at 10:47 pm #

    Chibi beat me to it, but I was also going to guess Burmese.

11. Joseph Staleknight on 06 Feb 2007 at 3:15 am #

    OK, maybe it’s not East Asian at all. It sounds somewhat Indian.

12. TJ on 06 Feb 2007 at 6:39 am #

    AR>> considering “its” and “it’s” well … we do write the two words here in the same way … it is just a matter of speedy typing for me ! like typing “im” for “I’m” or “ur” for “your” and “you’re” sometimes ! :)

    as for the language, how about Tibetan?

13. Zachary on 06 Feb 2007 at 8:10 am #

    My first guess was a more Indian-ish language, definately not Khmer, but could be the Mon language. So I’ll stick to that.

14. Simon on 06 Feb 2007 at 9:50 am #

    Chibi and Mike got it right - the language is Burmese.

    The recording comes from one of the Burmese lessons on:
    www.seasite.niu.edu/Burmese/

15. Paul on 06 Feb 2007 at 11:47 am #

    I was only ribbing Simon for his tiny grammatical error! God forbid anyone would read through what I write and be as critical. Were this not a language-based site, I wouldn’t be quite so pedantic … for the record, I’m not one of those spelling / grammar policemen! But time spent checking through radio scripts for broadcast have left me hypersensitive to these things … keep up the good work. One of the first blogs I check daily.

16. Paul on 06 Feb 2007 at 11:49 am #

    Oh … the irony. Of course, that should be “time spent … HAS left me …”.

    That’s what they call pedants’ comeuppance!