Omniglot - the blog

Language quiz

Simon on 10 Jun 2007

Language and Quiz questions | Comments (8)

8 Responses to “Language quiz”

1. David on 11 Jun 2007 at 1:17 am #

   Tahitian? Just a wild guess…

2. BG on 11 Jun 2007 at 4:16 am #

   My randomn guess is Bugis. I don’t think it can be Tahitian because it is spoken on many islands.

3. pittmirg on 11 Jun 2007 at 6:00 am #

   Drehu? :D

4. Tony Allan on 11 Jun 2007 at 1:26 pm #

   Is it Tongan?

5. renato figueiredo on 11 Jun 2007 at 3:54 pm #

   For me it likes as Nauruan, isn’t it?

6. Simon on 11 Jun 2007 at 3:54 pm #

   The answer is Drehu, one of the languages I added to Omniglot this week. It’s spoken on Lifou Island (Île Loyauté), one of the Loyalty Islands, which are part of New Caledonia (Nouvelle-Calédonie).

   The recording is part of a story about the Tongans. You can find the whole story with translations into English and French here.

7. Tony Allan on 12 Jun 2007 at 9:01 am #

   I picked up the word “Tonga” a few times on the tape. That’s why I guessed Tongan. I should have known it wouldn’t be that simple. I suspected it was something other than a Polynesian language, actually, because there were a few words ending in consonants, including ‘m’.

   I’ve only just discovered your website, and think it’s great. I think you can hear most of the world’s languages spoken at some time here in my home city of Melbourne, Australia.

8. Richard on 15 Jun 2007 at 10:10 pm #

   perhaps Yap?