Omniglot - the blog

Name the language

Simon on 15 Jun 2008

Language and Quiz questions | Comments (18)

18 Responses to “Name the language”

1. Babs on 15 Jun 2008 at 2:06 pm #

   Sounds like Russian.

2. michael on 15 Jun 2008 at 3:24 pm #

   Yeah, sounds very much like Russian. If it isn’t, it’s some closely related language.

3. James on 15 Jun 2008 at 3:53 pm #

   I´m not able to go any further really than the others…

   It started with a “menya zavut…”, but I heard a few words that could have been romance (but I expect everything I hear to have romance words, incluyding when people speak English). I doubt it´s a western slavonic language.

4. Strika on 15 Jun 2008 at 4:51 pm #

   I think it’s still a slavonic language, but I have no idea… Serbian?

5. Bobby on 15 Jun 2008 at 5:02 pm #

   To the best, of my knowledge, it sounded like a southern Slavonic language so since I have a Croat friend I’m going to go with Croatian.

6. Lau on 15 Jun 2008 at 5:48 pm #

   I think it is Belarussian. I heard “mianie zavut” (my name is) and “Savietski Sajuz” (The Soviet Union).
   I can’t completely rule out that it is Russian, but I think I heard a soft g (h), and Russian doesn’t have this.

7. prase on 15 Jun 2008 at 6:25 pm #

   It sounds like it has Polish distribution of consonants, but I doesn’t seem to me Polish, even if I can’t rule that out because of poor quality of the sound. I’d guess Belarussian or Kashubian.

8. xarxa on 15 Jun 2008 at 6:49 pm #

   eastern european is all i can say, nothing more specific than that

9. harris e. on 15 Jun 2008 at 7:26 pm #

   just for fun… Sorbian

10. pittmirg on 15 Jun 2008 at 9:10 pm #

    Definitely neither Polish nor a West Slavic language. It sounded to me like Russian with the reduction of /o/ to something like [ʌ]. It could also be Belarusian, though I haven’t had much contact with that language.

11. pavel on 15 Jun 2008 at 10:38 pm #

    U guess Rusyn.

12. d.m.falk on 15 Jun 2008 at 10:58 pm #

    I was thinking Belarussian or Ukrainian.

    d.m.f.

13. Nareg Seferian on 15 Jun 2008 at 11:31 pm #

    I’ll go for Belarussian, because he’s saying he was born in Minsk.

14. Kerstin on 16 Jun 2008 at 4:23 am #

    It’s Belarusian. It’s from the documentary “A Lesson Belarusian” YouTube video http://youtube.com/watch?v=GV2PV99WnQI

15. michael farris on 16 Jun 2008 at 6:40 am #

    My first thought was Belarussian but I wouldn’t be suprrised if it’s ukrainian or something in between, anyway I’d be really surprised if it’s not East Slavic something.

16. Simon on 16 Jun 2008 at 2:31 pm #

    The language is indeed Belarusian (Беларуская мова/Bielaruskaja mova).

    The recording comes from YouTube.

17. Yana on 21 Jun 2008 at 12:48 am #

    I guess I’m late but for what it’s worth at least I guessed it correctly! I’m Russian and for a moment I actually thought it was Russian - that’s how similar the languages are. Then I heard the man say he was from Minsk, so that’s what gave it away. Now I’ve learnt that the two languages are indeed very similar!

18. wordlover on 21 Jun 2008 at 11:54 pm #

    This is a shot in the dark, but sounds like a relative of Russian. I would venture Croatian, but I’m almost certainly wrong. The differentiation between hard and soft vowels is there, so I’m pretty sure it’s not Polish.