Omniglot - the blog

Name the language

Simon on 12 May 2007

Language and Quiz questions | Comments (5)

5 Responses to “Name the language”

1. Daydreamer on 12 May 2007 at 3:23 pm #

   I think it’s Indonesian. The only word familiar to me is ‘orang’ (human being) right at the beginning. Don’t know, though, what it’s all about.

2. Guido R. on 12 May 2007 at 4:53 pm #

   Indonesian indeed.
   Here on omniglot one can hear the same text, the Declaration of Human Rights, on the site for Indonesian.
   The speaker, conspicuously, has a uvular /r/ which lets me doubt, if he is a native speaker. To my knowledge Indonesian has apical /r/ as a rule.

3. David on 13 May 2007 at 3:15 am #

   I also agree, It’s indonesian. The only thing I could understand was ’satu’= one….

4. Simon on 13 May 2007 at 11:59 am #

   It is indeed Indonesian.

   This week I’ve copied recordings of Article 1 of the Universal Human Rights (my standard sample text) in a number of languages from Librivox, including this Indonesian one.

5. John M on 19 May 2007 at 5:22 pm #

   It also contains “merdeka”, the Malay for freedom; but Indonesian and Malay must be very closely related?