Language quiz

Here’s a recording in a mystery language.

Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?

Comments (5)

Chris MillerDecember 2nd, 2012 at 6:10 pm

Wow. The first sample I’ve heard that doesn’t suggest anything to me that would clearly place it on one continent in particular (even if what I *think* I hear completely misleads me)!

All I can say is that this clearly doesn’t seem to be a language of northern Eurasia, North America, Australia or far northern or southern Africa.

It seems to me it could have come from any one of several places along the tropical belt. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it were a language from (a) the Amazon basin (or just possibly further south in South America), (b) the African savannah/sahel belt, (c) greater mainland Southeast Asia, or (d) Micronesia. Absolutely no idea beyond this, though.

SimonDecember 2nd, 2012 at 6:24 pm

To help you narrow it down – it comes from South America.

SaraDecember 3rd, 2012 at 3:27 am

Quechua or Kichwa?

clDecember 3rd, 2012 at 8:07 am

There’s a lot of “Fuy” in this recording. There is a river in Chile called Fuy, located in the commune of Panguipulli where the Mapuche people are indigenous. It must be the Mapuche language (Mapudungun). I got the info from where else, Wikipedia.

SimonDecember 3rd, 2012 at 6:25 pm

It’s not Mapuche, but a closely related language spoken in the same area – Huilliche (Chesungun), an Araucanian language spoken in Chile.

The recording comes from the GRN (The Lost Sheep).