Language quiz

Here are recordings of the first verse of a famous Christmas carol in four different languages. I’m sure you’ll be able to recognise the carol, but can you work out which languages they are, and which of them is the odd one out?

Comments (12)

DcelanNovember 17th, 2007 at 5:19 pm

I think two and three are Celtic anyway, (first word in both sounds very like oíche) so I’ll say the odd one out is one, and two and three are Scots Gaelic and Manx respectively.

MiroNovember 17th, 2007 at 5:24 pm

The first three start with something like “Ticha noc”, which indicates Slavic languages. The first one is Polish “Cicha noc”, second Croatian “Tiha noć”, third one is Czech “Tichá noc”. No idea about the fourth one.

LoganNovember 17th, 2007 at 5:40 pm

The fourth one is Hungarian – “Csendes éj”.

VoytecNovember 17th, 2007 at 7:45 pm

I agree with you guys:
1. Polish (that one for sure ;)
2. Croatian
3. Czech
4. Hungarian
The first three are Slavic languages and the last one is Finno-Ugric.

JamesNovember 18th, 2007 at 1:05 am

1 Polish (makes me very nostalgic as I started learning this and had planned to live in Poland… my family comes from there. Never happened.
(2) something else Slavic
(3) Czeck
(4) no idea, but it ain´t slavic, hence odd one out

Don´t really know eastern European lanaguages well enough

PollyNovember 18th, 2007 at 2:12 am

First one is Slavic, but definitely not Russian.

The last one sounded Chinese.

The middle two, no idea.

TalibNovember 18th, 2007 at 7:08 am

Eh, I thought the first one might be Russian, but I admit I don’t know a ton about Slavic languages. But I am certain the first three are all Slavic, and the last is Hungarian.

yukoNovember 18th, 2007 at 11:51 am

1. some language spoken in Eastern Europe
2. near India?
3. Scandinavia
4. in Africa?

Thank you for all the beautiful choruses.
Yes, Christmas time is coming up soon!

renato figueiredoNovember 18th, 2007 at 1:39 pm

Dear Simon, I would like to make a question, diferentilly from this quiz. What could you tell us about Eurish language. I saw some sentences at travellanguage.com. Ar wikipedia there is the information that is an extiguish language. Don’t you have more infos? Thanks

SimonNovember 18th, 2007 at 5:37 pm

Renato – do you mean this Eurish?

SimonNovember 18th, 2007 at 5:37 pm

The carol is of course Silent Night, and the languages are:

Language 1 – Polish (Cicha noc)
Language 2 – Croatian (Tiha noć)
Language 3 – Czech (Tichá noc)
Language 4 – Hungarian (Csendes éj)

Hungarian is the odd one out – the other languages are all Slavic.

BGNovember 19th, 2007 at 5:56 am

That Eurish joke is pretty funny. (I’ve seen it before.) I’m not sure if the Wikipedia article is about this. It is too short to tell if it refers to the joke.