Name the language
Here’s a recording of a poem in a mystery language. Can you work out what language it is?
Clues: this language is spoken in Europe by a small number of people in a mountainous area.
November 5th, 2006 in
Language, Quiz questions
Romansch, perhaps?
Is it basque by any chance? The clues would fit.
It sounds definitely Rumantsch, spoken in eastern Switzerland in a mountainous area.
Hugo and Podolsky got it – it is indeed Romansch/Rumantsch/Romansh (how ever you spell it!).
The recording comes from a page called ‘Little islands of Romansh‘, which features lots of interesting information about the language, and a number of audio recordings and videos of people speaking it.
argh. i hate being late to check when there is a puzzle on the blog. i knew it was romance.
You gave too many clues! I knew it was Rumantsch before even listening to it! Well, I was 95% sure, anyway. This is awesome though, I had been wanting to hear what this language sounded like for a long time but couldn’t find any resources online the last time I looked.
Yay for small languages!
I had no idea what language it was, but it sounded almost Arabic to me :-) It certainly was lovely!
It’s too bad there aren’t more resources for small languages online…
I guessed it from the description too! It sounds like Italian to me.
I mean that I guessed that it was Romansh, but that Romansh sounds like Italian to me.