Name the language
Here’s a recording of part of a news report in a mystery language. Any ideas which language it is and where it’s spoken?
15 Responses to “Name the language”
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Halabund on 05 Apr 2008 at 5:38 pm #
Googling points to Kinyarwanda or something related, but I may be wrong.
LandTortoise on 05 Apr 2008 at 8:58 pm #
A Portuguese based creole?
S Shelby on 05 Apr 2008 at 9:17 pm #
Definitely Bantu, most likely Niger-Congo - my uneducated guess is Lozi because many of the words matched an online Lozi dictionary, although I think the Kamba were mentioned in the recording, so it could be Kikamba.
Podolsky on 06 Apr 2008 at 5:59 am #
Quechua - Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador.
d.m.falk on 06 Apr 2008 at 6:33 am #
Sounds to me a native South American language. Beyond that, I can’t really tell.
d.m.f.
d.m.falk on 06 Apr 2008 at 6:35 am #
Podolsky: That was a first thought, though I wasn’t sure.
d.m.f.
vautour on 06 Apr 2008 at 9:16 am #
Another vote for Quechua.
Daydreamer on 06 Apr 2008 at 7:28 pm #
Definitely not Quechua. If S. Shelby isn’t right, I’d go to the opposite direction - to South East Asia and an Austronesian language.
The doubling of “semana” (= “for weeks”) could point to a Spanish influence. So what about a language of the Philippines -Tagalog, Cebuano or Bisaya?
SeNdY on 06 Apr 2008 at 9:03 pm #
It sounds to me like a South American dialect/language.
and st. Google says that “semana tanda” is something like “Semana Santa” in spanish, so I would go for something from South America.
DL on 07 Apr 2008 at 3:14 am #
one more vote for quechua
Evans on 07 Apr 2008 at 3:59 am #
i’d also say quechua. the cadence seems right, and even though there are clicks, i don’t think it is a bantu language.
BG on 07 Apr 2008 at 6:00 am #
If there are true clicks it isn’t Quechu, although there is a uvular ejective [q’] (along with other ejectives) which may sound like a click.
d.m.falk on 07 Apr 2008 at 6:26 am #
Daydreamer: The languages of the Philipines are all malay languages. I had a teacher and friend who himself was a Tagalog– Believe me, the cadence and structure of the language in this recording is nothing like Tagalog, but does resemble many native languages in the Americas. I stick by this being a South American language, perhaps one of the Andean languages like Quechua or Aymara.
d.m.f.
Simon on 07 Apr 2008 at 8:40 am #
The answer is Quechua (Runasimi), which is spoken mainly in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.
The recording comes from here.
Daydreamer on 08 Apr 2008 at 12:30 am #
Oops! So sorry for misleading you all, but the recording sounds so different from what I have in mind of a piece of radio broadcast in Quechua.