Do you know or can you guess which language it’s in and where it’s spoken?
18 thoughts on “Language quiz”
Talking a wild guess: could it be Georgian or some other Caucasian language.
I’m pretty sure it’s not Georgian, the vowel system seems more complicated than just a-e-i-o-u. The clue, I think, is what sounds like [pArtja sosjaldEmokrat ja ukrajna]. If ‘ja’ means ‘of’, then it definitely can’t be an inflection-heavy Caucasian language. I don’t have a good guess though. Albanian?
I’m guessing Albanian, only because I think I heard Pristina mentioned. What I am certain of is it’s nothing Slavic, despite the obviously Russian name that kept popping up.
It’s probably democratija ukraina with the ja forming the ending of the word democracy.
I’m gonna guess Tajik, it has a general Iranian sound and references to Russia and/or Ukraine. It doesn’t sound Caucasian to me at all (to the small extent that I have an idea of what those languages sound like).
Other wild guess might be a very divergent Turkic language from Russia, but I’d have no idea which one.
Albanian’s a promising guess. What about Lebanese?
I suppose it is cheating to google around on names in the audio?
Turkic-sounding, with an [y] in Lübnan (Lebanon), and lots of -in endings (Turkic, I believe locative). There’s a loan word from Persian popping up several times: goftogu (conversation, talk) but pronounced guftugu. The ‘Partiya Sosial-demokrat ye Ukraina” seems like a part borrowing from Russian (‘partiya’) crossed with the Persian ‘ezâfe’ construction that Ottoman Turkish scrubbed out of the language post-Atatürk. I think it’s most likely some central Asian Turkic language, but which is a good question.
To me it sound very nice, like a French sounding Turkish language. I’m going to take stab in the dark and say Azerbaijani.
It’s a news report so to hear with short lines about sveral items. Nice clear recording. But now… the language, mmm… not Albanian, that sounds different. I too heard the Farsi and Urdu word “guftagu” but also some turkic aspirated soundings. So, somewhere in between. Turkmen?
I agree with Christopher, quite Turkic-sounding. I hear a lot of -de/da (locative; or possibly even 3rd p sing. past tense?), a -dan or two (ablative), and quite a few -e/ye (dative). The -in is definitely common (at least in Turkish) as a genitive case marker. But all the non-Turkic proper nouns are distracting.
Could it be Cimean Tatar?
I meant to write CRIMEAN.The Tatars who live in Ukraine in the Crimean peninsula,not to be confused with other Tatars elsewhere.
I was also half-wondering about Crimean Tatar.
It isn’t Crimean Tatar or any other Turkic language, but this language is spoken in a number of countries where Turkic languages are used so may have been influenced by them.
Oooh, talk of dangling a tantalising clue in front of our noses, now!
;-D
My second guess would be a language in the Iranian group, especially because of what *seems* to be a lot of Farsi-like”ezâfe” ‘-ye’ (basically equivalent to ‘of’) and what sounds like ‘-ande’ participle endings (equivalent to ‘-ing’, ‘-end’, ‘-ando/iendo’, ‘-ant’ in various Germanic and Romance languages). Michael Farris’s guess of Tajik would fit well, especially considering this last clue, and that’s what I was considering. However it seemed it didn’t sound similar enough to Farsi otherwise and had some un-Farsi-like vowels… Perhaps a Kurdish language?
Okay, after this information, Simon, I follow my very first thought and go for Kurdish. Some years ago I dealt with Kurdish speaking Iraqi refugees and this recording sounds like that…
The language is Kurdish (Kurdí / کوردی / к’öрди) which is spoken in Iraq, Turkey, Iran and quite a few other countries.
Talking a wild guess: could it be Georgian or some other Caucasian language.
I’m pretty sure it’s not Georgian, the vowel system seems more complicated than just a-e-i-o-u. The clue, I think, is what sounds like [pArtja sosjaldEmokrat ja ukrajna]. If ‘ja’ means ‘of’, then it definitely can’t be an inflection-heavy Caucasian language. I don’t have a good guess though. Albanian?
I’m guessing Albanian, only because I think I heard Pristina mentioned. What I am certain of is it’s nothing Slavic, despite the obviously Russian name that kept popping up.
It’s probably democratija ukraina with the ja forming the ending of the word democracy.
I’m gonna guess Tajik, it has a general Iranian sound and references to Russia and/or Ukraine. It doesn’t sound Caucasian to me at all (to the small extent that I have an idea of what those languages sound like).
Other wild guess might be a very divergent Turkic language from Russia, but I’d have no idea which one.
Albanian’s a promising guess. What about Lebanese?
I suppose it is cheating to google around on names in the audio?
Turkic-sounding, with an [y] in Lübnan (Lebanon), and lots of -in endings (Turkic, I believe locative). There’s a loan word from Persian popping up several times: goftogu (conversation, talk) but pronounced guftugu. The ‘Partiya Sosial-demokrat ye Ukraina” seems like a part borrowing from Russian (‘partiya’) crossed with the Persian ‘ezâfe’ construction that Ottoman Turkish scrubbed out of the language post-Atatürk. I think it’s most likely some central Asian Turkic language, but which is a good question.
To me it sound very nice, like a French sounding Turkish language. I’m going to take stab in the dark and say Azerbaijani.
It’s a news report so to hear with short lines about sveral items. Nice clear recording. But now… the language, mmm… not Albanian, that sounds different. I too heard the Farsi and Urdu word “guftagu” but also some turkic aspirated soundings. So, somewhere in between. Turkmen?
I agree with Christopher, quite Turkic-sounding. I hear a lot of -de/da (locative; or possibly even 3rd p sing. past tense?), a -dan or two (ablative), and quite a few -e/ye (dative). The -in is definitely common (at least in Turkish) as a genitive case marker. But all the non-Turkic proper nouns are distracting.
Could it be Cimean Tatar?
I meant to write CRIMEAN.The Tatars who live in Ukraine in the Crimean peninsula,not to be confused with other Tatars elsewhere.
I was also half-wondering about Crimean Tatar.
It isn’t Crimean Tatar or any other Turkic language, but this language is spoken in a number of countries where Turkic languages are used so may have been influenced by them.
Oooh, talk of dangling a tantalising clue in front of our noses, now!
;-D
My second guess would be a language in the Iranian group, especially because of what *seems* to be a lot of Farsi-like”ezâfe” ‘-ye’ (basically equivalent to ‘of’) and what sounds like ‘-ande’ participle endings (equivalent to ‘-ing’, ‘-end’, ‘-ando/iendo’, ‘-ant’ in various Germanic and Romance languages). Michael Farris’s guess of Tajik would fit well, especially considering this last clue, and that’s what I was considering. However it seemed it didn’t sound similar enough to Farsi otherwise and had some un-Farsi-like vowels… Perhaps a Kurdish language?
Okay, after this information, Simon, I follow my very first thought and go for Kurdish. Some years ago I dealt with Kurdish speaking Iraqi refugees and this recording sounds like that…
The language is Kurdish (Kurdí / کوردی / к’öрди) which is spoken in Iraq, Turkey, Iran and quite a few other countries.
The recording comes from RUVR – The Voice of Russia
it’s sounds more like a language from the india area, I know i’ve heard it before. I’m going to say bengali.