Omniglot - the blog

Name the language

Simon on 16 Feb 2008

Language and Quiz questions | Comments (22)

22 Responses to “Name the language”

1. Daydreamer on 17 Feb 2008 at 1:36 am #

   I’m tempted to say that this language is spoken in Southeast Asia. Could it be Lao?

2. prase on 17 Feb 2008 at 2:42 am #

   Sounds like Japanese.

3. PP on 17 Feb 2008 at 3:31 am #

   prase it doesn’t sound like japanese. If I should guess, I would say thai.

4. BG on 17 Feb 2008 at 5:46 am #

   (Without looking) It is a tonal language, probably Sino-Tibetan. I am guessing a Chinese language (not Mandarin).

5. Podolsky on 17 Feb 2008 at 6:58 am #

   Hmong?

6. Gleydson Macedo on 17 Feb 2008 at 11:32 am #

   Like Daydreamer above wrote, it looks like something from Southeast Asia… I would say Vietnamese.

7. TJ on 17 Feb 2008 at 12:49 pm #

   Don’t forget Cambodian

8. Simon on 17 Feb 2008 at 1:35 pm #

   This language is spoken in Southeast Asia, but isn’t Sino-Tibetan.

9. Thomas (babelhut.com) on 17 Feb 2008 at 2:19 pm #

   It sounds like Thai to me, which to answer the second question is spoken in Thailand.

10. hallo on 17 Feb 2008 at 3:01 pm #

    khmer?

11. Ian on 17 Feb 2008 at 3:09 pm #

    It is central Thai and my translation of it is…

    “A model sentence to study ‘What time shall we meet to go out? Where has special drinks/drinks on special tonight?’ “

12. Sephe on 17 Feb 2008 at 11:17 pm #

    Some type of Chinese dialect I think?

13. Daydreamer on 18 Feb 2008 at 12:56 am #

    The solution seems to depend on whether Thai and Lao (and Burmese among others) are considered to be Sino-Tibetan languages.
    If they are not, I’m can’t help thinking that our mistery language is Khmer again (as it was one year ago).

14. Daydreamer on 18 Feb 2008 at 1:05 am #

    Oops! The last sentence in my previous comment should read:
    “If Thai and Lao are considered Sino-Tibetan languages (and therefore must be ruled out according to Simon’s clue), I can’t help…”

15. PP on 18 Feb 2008 at 1:45 am #

    Daydreamer: No, they are classified as a separate family.

    And according this http://wikitravel.org/en/Lao_phrasebook it cannot be Lao. (no r)

16. Ian on 18 Feb 2008 at 2:31 am #

    I made a mistake in my earlier post. It’s a phrase for parties.

    http://www.omniglot.com/writing/lao.htm also shows that there is no ‘r’ sound. There is a letter whose written form is almost the same as the Thai ‘r’ (ร) but is usually pronounced as /l/ (at the beginning of a word atleast). A lot of Thais rather sloppily use this pronunciation too.

    In consonant clusters ‘r’ isn’t seen in Lao e.g. Lao PDR the P is for Pathet (country) whereas the Thai word is Prathet [my transliteration] . This ‘pr’ consonant cluster is in the very first syllable of the sample listening.

    The mistake I made in my first translation was hearing ngaan- lee-ang (งานเลี้ยง) as ngaan-ree-an (งานเรียน)

    (transcript in Thai below)

    ประโยคสำรับงานเลี้ยง ไปเที่ยวกันเธอ จะเจอกันกี่โมงดี ดืนนี้ที่ไหนมีเครืองดื่มรายการพิเศาบั้ง

17. Ian on 18 Feb 2008 at 2:49 am #

    I whoops. I meant Pathet Lao and not Lao PDR

18. Jeremy on 18 Feb 2008 at 8:49 am #

    that’s definitely thai, which of course means it’s spoken in thailand.
    buuut than again, it could also be lao, but it’s too hard falling to be to me.

19. Jeremy on 18 Feb 2008 at 8:51 am #

    ok so sino-tibeatan languages could be thai included, but also could not, depending on what linguists say. hmmm…

20. Simon on 18 Feb 2008 at 10:08 am #

    The language is Thai, a Tai-Kadai language which is spoken mainly in Thailand. The recording comes from LanguageTube, a language learning site with YouTube videos.

    Here are the phrases:

    ประโยคสำรับงานเลี้ยง (prayok samrap nganliang)
    = Partying phrases

    ไปเที่ยวกันเธอ (pai tiaw gan thuh)
    = Let’s go out

    จะเจอกันกี่โมงด (ja jergan geemong dee)
    = What time would you like to meet?

    ดืนนี้ที่ไหนมีเครืองดื่มรายการพิเศาบั้ง
    (keunnee theenai mee kreuangdeum raiganphiset bang)
    = What places have good drinks specials tonight?

21. Mike on 19 Feb 2008 at 7:42 pm #

    It sounds like it’s a text being played backwards

22. roni on 07 Mar 2008 at 12:09 am #

    you’ve got some mistakes in your written version of the sentences!

    ไปเที่ยวกันเธอ (pai tiaw gan thuh) = Let’s go out
    should read ไปเที่ยวกันเถอะ, where the last word is changed.
    เธอ means “you” or “her”
    เถอะ is a particle that puts a phrase into the imperative

    จะเจอกันกี่โมงด (ja jergan geemong dee)
    = What time would you like to meet?
    you’re missing the vowel on the last letter. It should read
    จะเจอกันกี่โมงดี

    ดืนนี้ที่ไหนมีเครืองดื่มรายการพิเศาบั้ง
    (keunnee theenai mee kreuangdeum raiganphiset bang)
    = What places have good drinks specials tonight?

    this should read ดืนนี้ที่ไหนมีเครื่องดื่มรายการพิเศษบ้าง
    where เครือง has a tone mark added: เคร่ือง
    พิเศา (phisao) is changed to พิเศษ (phiset)
    and บั้ง is changed to บ้าง (with a longer vowel)