Omniglot - the blog

Language quiz

Simon on 10 May 2008

Language and Quiz questions | Comments (19)

19 Responses to “Language quiz”

1. LK on 10 May 2008 at 9:13 pm #

   Mongolian.

2. Leitbulb on 10 May 2008 at 9:55 pm #

   slovak spoken in slovakia?

3. LK on 10 May 2008 at 10:13 pm #

   As a native speaker of Slovak — it is most definitely not Slovak, Czech, Polish, Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian or Russian.

   I’m still leaning towards Mongolian or maybe Kazakh.

4. Daydreamer on 10 May 2008 at 11:44 pm #

   Wait a minute - Mongolian was the subject of a language quiz only six weeks ago.
   Today’s language seems to have some sort of Turkic vowel harmony and considering the frequency of the vowel “a” I shouldn’t be surprised, if it was Kazakh or even Karakalpak.

5. Alan Coady on 11 May 2008 at 12:57 am #

   I’ve no idea what the language is but I’m struck by the contrast between the calmness of the voice and the astonishing speed.

6. JRice on 11 May 2008 at 1:31 am #

   I’ll second the guess for Kazakh.

   (And the amazement at the speaker’s rate!)

7. Bobby on 11 May 2008 at 2:47 am #

   Kazakh… I think… definitely turkic, but beyond that i haven’t the foggiest. I wish I could speak so quickly!

8. TJ on 11 May 2008 at 6:29 am #

   aaa …… whats that?

   from the “im” endings I think it is turkic.
   Uyghur?

9. VV on 11 May 2008 at 6:50 am #

   It’s turkic. Probably - Kyrgyz.

10. michael farris on 11 May 2008 at 8:07 am #

    Definitely Turkic, but that’s as precise as I can get without doing more.

    I’m thinking Central Asia (rather than Turkish or Azerbaijan) and probably not Kazakh (which sounds more gutteral) or Turkmen (which has dental fricatives IIRC). So off the top of my head my guesses would center on Kirgiz or Uzbek (possibly Uighur)

11. d.m.falk on 11 May 2008 at 8:26 am #

    Definitely a turkic language- One that actually has some words borrowed from Mongolian, it sounds to me here– Tuvan.

    d.m.f.

12. xarxa on 11 May 2008 at 10:54 am #

    turkic - azeri?

13. Prietpraatprinses on 11 May 2008 at 11:03 am #

    Makes me think of Turkish, but probably isn’t. So I suppose it will be turkic too, but I don’t know which language :)

14. LK on 11 May 2008 at 4:35 pm #

    I am revising my claim to Mongolia and Kazakhstan, and will agree with d.m.falk - Tuvan.

15. Greg on 12 May 2008 at 1:52 pm #

    Definitely turkic, and I would agree that it’s most likely Kazakh.

16. Simon on 12 May 2008 at 4:35 pm #

    The answer is Kyrgyz/Kirghiz (Кыргыз), which is spoken mainly in Kyrgyzstan and China. Well done to those who guessed correctly.

    The recording comes from this site.

17. Giovanni 'Prestige' on 14 May 2008 at 6:51 pm #

    Just reporting that the first link in the previous comment doesn’t work.

18. Simon on 15 May 2008 at 10:27 am #

    Giovanni - the first link in that comment is working now.

19. Josh on 14 Jun 2008 at 11:10 pm #

    It’s Uzbek! Probably from BBC World News. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Uzbekistan. Wonderful people and what a great language with so many suffixes!