Name the language

Here’s a recording of part of a news report in a mystery language. Any ideas which language it is and where it’s spoken?

Comments (0)

HalabundApril 5th, 2008 at 5:38 pm

Googling points to Kinyarwanda or something related, but I may be wrong.

LandTortoiseApril 5th, 2008 at 8:58 pm

A Portuguese based creole?

S ShelbyApril 5th, 2008 at 9:17 pm

Definitely Bantu, most likely Niger-Congo – my uneducated guess is Lozi because many of the words matched an online Lozi dictionary, although I think the Kamba were mentioned in the recording, so it could be Kikamba.

PodolskyApril 6th, 2008 at 5:59 am

Quechua – Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador.

d.m.falkApril 6th, 2008 at 6:33 am

Sounds to me a native South American language. Beyond that, I can’t really tell.

d.m.f.

d.m.falkApril 6th, 2008 at 6:35 am

Podolsky: That was a first thought, though I wasn’t sure.

d.m.f.

vautourApril 6th, 2008 at 9:16 am

Another vote for Quechua.

DaydreamerApril 6th, 2008 at 7:28 pm

Definitely not Quechua. If S. Shelby isn’t right, I’d go to the opposite direction – to South East Asia and an Austronesian language.
The doubling of “semana” (= “for weeks”) could point to a Spanish influence. So what about a language of the Philippines -Tagalog, Cebuano or Bisaya?

SeNdYApril 6th, 2008 at 9:03 pm

It sounds to me like a South American dialect/language.
and st. Google says that “semana tanda” is something like “Semana Santa” in spanish, so I would go for something from South America.

DLApril 7th, 2008 at 3:14 am

one more vote for quechua

EvansApril 7th, 2008 at 3:59 am

i’d also say quechua. the cadence seems right, and even though there are clicks, i don’t think it is a bantu language.

BGApril 7th, 2008 at 6:00 am

If there are true clicks it isn’t Quechu, although there is a uvular ejective [q'] (along with other ejectives) which may sound like a click.

d.m.falkApril 7th, 2008 at 6:26 am

Daydreamer: The languages of the Philipines are all malay languages. I had a teacher and friend who himself was a Tagalog– Believe me, the cadence and structure of the language in this recording is nothing like Tagalog, but does resemble many native languages in the Americas. I stick by this being a South American language, perhaps one of the Andean languages like Quechua or Aymara.

d.m.f.

SimonApril 7th, 2008 at 8:40 am

The answer is Quechua (Runasimi), which is spoken mainly in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.

The recording comes from here.

DaydreamerApril 8th, 2008 at 12:30 am

Oops! So sorry for misleading you all, but the recording sounds so different from what I have in mind of a piece of radio broadcast in Quechua.