Name the language
Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know or can you guess which language it’s in and where it’s spoken?
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Here’s a recording in a mystery language.
Do you know or can you guess which language it’s in and where it’s spoken?
October 25th, 2009 at 11:39 am
This sounds a lot like Russian, but I think it has some properties of Japanese. However, despite the geographic proximity, I don’t know any “intermediate” language between the two.
I guess it’s some eastern european language…
October 25th, 2009 at 11:54 am
A SE Asian language. Perhaps something related to Khmer?
October 25th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Vietnamese?
October 25th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Based on nothing but a vague idea of phonology: Khmer?
October 25th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Oh, I see Halabund beat me to it.
October 25th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
I also guess Khmer. :o
October 25th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
My guess is Thai because I seem to hear the word “thai” several times in the recording.
October 25th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
It sounds like a tonal language from SE Asia. Excluding Thai, it’s probably Vietnamese
October 25th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
It seems to lack the relative “smoothness” and “femininity” of Thai and the more sonorant quality of Vietnamese, so I’m going to guess Khmer also.
October 25th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Yeah must be Khmer, but a few already answered that so I go for Hmong….
October 25th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Khmer. It has the aspirated pre-syllables so characteristic of Austroasiatic languages and none of the surrounding languages and intonation but none of the multiple tone contours of its neighbours. PLUS the person says “Khmer” with the proper Khmer pronunciation /khmae/ twice, just after the beginning and just after the middle.
October 25th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Christopher Miller is right. My first guess was Khmer, for largely the same reasons, but also since the words seem to be mostly monosyllabic, there are quite a few diphthongs, and there are final glottal stops. It could also be some other non-tonal Mon-Khmer language, but the only one likely to be discussing international relationships ([kʰmaɪ nŋ tʰaɪ] “Khmer and Thai”?) is Khmer.
October 25th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
I say Khmer because of the initial consonant clusters.
October 26th, 2009 at 12:17 am
It sounds a LOT like Thai, but it’s not. Khmer seems a good guess- it’s not tonal, and this sounds kind of like toneless Thai. Do I hear a [z] in there? That’s defiantly not Thai, but I don’t think Khmer has it either.
October 26th, 2009 at 12:29 am
On more listens, it’s clearly Thai. I hear เมืองไทย, (Thailand), and ประจำ (regular-ish), and plenty of common words like ก็ and ได้. I can’t parse most of it, so it could be a regional dialect, but listening skills are weak sauce.
Thai has a lot of Khmer loanwords.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:18 am
Well as a speaker of Vietnamese I can say that it is DEFINITELY NOT Vietnamese. I am used to hearing Thai and Lao so they are both also out of the equation. Regarding Khmer, I also hear it quite a lot and although it reminds me of it – I’d say it’s also not Khmer. Maybe somewhere in South-east Asia or South Asia.
October 26th, 2009 at 3:26 am
On closer inspection I hear a lot of Khmer sounding words. It could be a regional dialect of Khmer.
October 26th, 2009 at 5:22 am
Abbie-
OK, I hear “prothe thai” part way through, but even though that sounds a lot like “Prathet Thai” in Thai, it is quite likely Khmer as well, since both languages borrowed heavily from Sanskrit and “prathet” and “prothe” would both be borrowed versions of “pradesha” (country).
October 26th, 2009 at 10:09 am
The language is Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ) which is spoken in mainly in Cambodia.
The recording comes from RFI (Radio France Internationale)
October 26th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Aha! I was comparing the recording to news broadcasts posted on YouTube and found it to be most similar to the Khmer news.
October 28th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Would it happen to be burmese?
October 29th, 2009 at 3:45 am
To “locuroso”:
Nope, it wouldn’t be Burmese. When –usually sometime late on the Monday after the quiz is posted – “Simon Says”, that’s the way it is. He’s the owner of the site and the one who puts up the mystery language recordings, so he knows what it is in advance.
;-)