10 Responses to “Language quiz”

1. Daniel Says:
   November 1st, 2009 at 2:10 pm

   What I noticed is what seems to be an English accent (and the English phrase “of course”), plus many references to Australia. So I suppose it’s a native Australian language spoken by a non-native speaker.

2. AlexM Says:
   November 1st, 2009 at 2:11 pm

   Maltese ?

3. lukas Says:
   November 1st, 2009 at 2:28 pm

   Definitely Maltese. English and Italian loanwords on an Arabic substrate (ħ is all over the place, even if you don’t know Arabic).

4. William Athol Says:
   November 1st, 2009 at 2:48 pm

   Baluchi?

5. wilma ramirez Says:
   November 1st, 2009 at 8:02 pm

   my guess .- maori

6. Christopher Miller Says:
   November 1st, 2009 at 8:20 pm

   Maltese, abso-defi-lutely, but spoken with a strong second-language accent. My guess: a second-generation Australian or at least someone who grew up speaking Australian English as her first or usual language and Maltese as a subordinate family language. I could understand about half of it, so close it is in sound to Lebanese. Words like kien ‘was’, li ‘who/that’, magħhom ‘with them’, is-sana l-oħra ‘the other (second?) year’, qalu(lu) [ʔalu(lu)] ‘they said (to him)’ and of course Inglis, Malti and Għawdex ['awdeʃ]: ‘English, Maltese, Gozo Island’. Then there are the Italian or Sicilian loans familja and kompletament. She’s telling a story about a (her?) family going to the High Commission of (ta’) “l-Awstralija” where someone before they came (ġu [ʤu]) to Australia. Not sure, but it sounds toward the middle like she’s talking about a “boyfriend Malti li qalulu (who they spoke to) bl-Inglis (in English), of course”.

7. peter j. franke Says:
   November 1st, 2009 at 8:58 pm

   My first thought was ‘Ivrieth with English accent. But after reading the comments of Alex, Lucas and Christopher they confinced me about Maltese.

8. formiko Says:
   November 1st, 2009 at 10:58 pm

   It sounded strangely like a weird Romance language with all the words ending in vowels, but after the comments, I can see that it could be Maltese, but my first guess was an aboriginal language spoken by a non-native, but even that was a stretch because I heard too many gutturals to be Pomo-Nyungan

9. prase Says:
   November 1st, 2009 at 11:42 pm

   I have guessed Maltese, too.

10. Simon Says:
    November 2nd, 2009 at 11:03 am

    The language is Maltese (Malti) which is spoken in mainly in Malta.

    The recording comes from SBS Radio (Australia).