New Year quiz

Here’s a recording featuring New Year greetings in different languages.

Can you identify the languages? (There are five all together)

Happy New Year, by the way

Tinsel

Comments (7)

Vijay JohnJanuary 1st, 2012 at 3:35 am

The first language was so faint that I kept thinking it must be some Native American language that has only old and dying speakers left, but then I realized that the languages are (I’m pretty sure of this):

1. Afrikaans
2. Bulgarian
3. Hakka
4. Greek
5. Malay

YenlitJanuary 1st, 2012 at 10:54 am

Without checking and comparing the recordings on the Omniglot useful phrases ‘Happy New Year’ page. I can only comment on the two languages I initially recognise.
2 is something Slavic because I recognise part of the phrase ‘nova godina’ but I know it’s not Polish because that would be traditionally ‘Nowego Roku’ in Polish. So I’m guessing either Serbian or Bulgarian (Нова Година)?
4 is definitely Greek Καλή Χρονία ‘kali chronia’

Καλή Χρονία σε όλους! (Happy New Year everyone!)

michael farrisJanuary 1st, 2012 at 9:36 pm

Guesses

1. Hebrew?
2. Slavic, maybe Bulgarian
3. Something Sinitic
4. Greek (sure)
5. Malay (or Malayo-something)

@yenlit in Polish it’s either Szczęśliwego nowego roku! or Do siego roku! the second seems to be going out of usage though : (

YenlitJanuary 2nd, 2012 at 11:22 am

@Michael Farris

Masz rację, dzięki! I was a bit clumsy the way I wrote it and what I meant to include was ellipsis ‘…. Nowego Roku’ because I was comparing the Polish to the corresponding ‘…. nova godina’ portion of the Serbian/Bulgarian recording. Of course ‘New Year’ in isolation is ‘Nowy Rok’.

Szczęśliwego nowego roku!

praseJanuary 2nd, 2012 at 4:07 pm

1. Dutch 2. Bulgarian 3. Thai 4. Greek 5. Persian

KevinJanuary 2nd, 2012 at 4:11 pm

(These thoughts are from before reading the comments above — honest! — though I’m pleased they seem to accord with my guesses:)

2. Slavic (though I can’t name the precise language), because of the recognizable “novo godino”, or something like it, for “new year”
4. Greek, because of the recognizable “hroniá”, which must surely have something to do with (the) TIME (of year)!

SimonJanuary 2nd, 2012 at 6:14 pm

The answers are:

1. Afrikaans = Gelukkige nuwe jaar
2. Bulgarian (български) = Честита нова година (Čestita nova godina)
3. Hakka (客家話) = 新年快樂 (sin1-ngien2 kuai5-lok8)
4. Greek (Ελληνικά) = Καλή χρονιά! (Kalí hroñá)
5. Malay (Bahasa melayu) = Selamat Tahun Baru