Omniglot - the blog

Language quiz

Simon on 29 Jul 2007

Language | Comments (16)

16 Responses to “Language quiz”

1. Colm on 29 Jul 2007 at 10:54 am #

   Is it Papiamento, a creole language of Aruba?

2. Mike on 29 Jul 2007 at 12:17 pm #

   I’m going to guess Guinea-Bissau Creole.

3. Jerry on 29 Jul 2007 at 2:17 pm #

   I’m sure it’s Papiamentu

4. segosa on 29 Jul 2007 at 3:02 pm #

   Whatever it is, I can understand it.

5. José San Martin on 29 Jul 2007 at 3:06 pm #

   It must be a Portuguese or Spanish creole, because I can understand almost all of it.

   It it written:

   “Dear visitor,

   We are working hard to make our infrastructure better (lit. “optimize our infrastructure”). We want to create a place (lit. “environment”) as nice (lit. “agréable”) as possible for you, in two months. (I’m not sure about “two”, but it seems to be that)

   We wish you to have a pleasant stay, and we “kórda” (”we remember you”?):

   We are wating you “right again” (something like it).

   By the way, Google tell us that “atrobe” is Papiamento. Thus…

6. TJ on 29 Jul 2007 at 6:01 pm #

   hmm is there a chance for Basque?

7. Giovanni on 29 Jul 2007 at 11:49 pm #

   It is a Portuguese creole for sure. I’ll say Cape Verdian Creole.

8. renato figueiredo on 30 Jul 2007 at 12:06 am #

   ” and the Oscar goes to’ Colm, Jerry and José, of course is Papiamento, spoken in Aruba, one of the three Netherlands Antilles island in Caribbean Sea. José made a very good translation.

9. James on 30 Jul 2007 at 1:01 am #

   (as always without reading comments)

   It´s very close to Portuguese, but not standard. Gallago, but I don´t think so (I once read a gallegan poem in a spanish novel with the help of a brazilian friend).

   the spelling is very interesting (k for the [k] sound is like text messaging in spanish.

   It means roughly

   Dear visitor,

   we are working hard to improve our infrastructure, we want to make the best possible environment for you, [i nos mes… something about months… must be the period of time: in 9 months?] We wish you a pleasant stay, and remember,

   we are looking forward to see you again soon (that´s a bit of a guess, no idea what atrobe is)

   J

10. BG on 30 Jul 2007 at 3:04 am #

    TJ: Basque is not an Indo-European language, but an isolate. It is not related to Romance languages even though it is spoken near them and has Romance based orthography.

11. TJ on 30 Jul 2007 at 5:39 am #

    BG: Yep I know :) although when you read some words in Basque it has some sense of spanish …… I mean in sense of sounds or so!
    But anyway I see everyone agrees that this language is spoken in some island ……. but the argument goes to which island is it! :)

12. Mike on 30 Jul 2007 at 6:50 am #

    Could “i nos mes” maybe mean something like, “and us as well”?

    “We want to make the best possible environment for you, and us as well!”

13. ManuFM on 30 Jul 2007 at 10:29 am #

    Mike, ‘i nos mes’ has an ellipted word, ‘pa’ (for). The sentence would be ‘pa abo, i pa nos mes’. So, in English, we should say: ‘to you, and for us as well’.

14. ManuFM on 30 Jul 2007 at 10:35 am #

    Sorry: ‘for you, and for us as well’.

15. Simon on 30 Jul 2007 at 2:50 pm #

    The answer is Papiamentu, which is also spelled Papimento, a Creole spoken mainly on the Caribeann islands of Curaçao, Bonaire, and Aruba. It’s a mixture of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, and also has some Arawak and African influences.

    Lara took the photo in Curaçao, part of the Netherlands Antilles. The sign is from a UNESCO funded restoration of the capital Willemstad.

16. James on 01 Aug 2007 at 12:56 am #

    yes it was the ellipsis that got me:

    i pa nos mes’. ´y para nosotros “más”´

    oh, and (oops) I was not the first to translate, but zt least we basically agree