Language quiz

Here’s a recording in a mystery language.

Do you know or can you guess which language it’s in and where it’s spoken?

Comments (12)

BGApril 26th, 2009 at 1:36 am

It sounds like a a Sino-Tibetan language, or some other tonal language from Southeast Asia, maybe. I’ll put out a guess of Hakka or Gan.

AeetlrcreejlApril 26th, 2009 at 4:52 am

It sounded more like Dravidian to me… Tamil or Telugu?

xarxaApril 26th, 2009 at 9:17 am

argh, something south asian, tamil?

Peter J. FrankeApril 26th, 2009 at 9:31 am

Complete unknow to me, but it sounds like native north american…

SimonApril 26th, 2009 at 11:40 am

Here’s a clue – it’s a native North American language.

michael farrisApril 26th, 2009 at 1:42 pm

My first guess is something Inuit-ish. Can’t be more precise though.

William AtholApril 27th, 2009 at 12:21 am

I will go with something from the Na-Dene languages; possibly an Athbaskan language? I’ll say Tlingit or Navajo, as they are the “largest” languages of that family. The lack of “hard” fricatives (to my American English ears) – velars, uvulars, glottals – is really throwing me off.

SnowLeopardApril 27th, 2009 at 3:03 am

It doesn’t sound Eskimo/Inuit-ish or Navajo-ish to me. How about Cree? The range of consonants seems similar and I heard a ni- prefix, which would correspond to a first-person singular verb form.

TazgoApril 27th, 2009 at 4:23 pm

Is it Haida?

William AtholApril 27th, 2009 at 5:33 pm

That was my second guess, SnowLeopard. I was going to go with Cree or Cherokee. The latter is just a guess as I’m just going by the way the language sounded. It didn’t sound as if there was a large consonant inventory or very many fricatives.

SimonApril 27th, 2009 at 7:23 pm

The answer is Cree (ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐍᐏᐣ/Nēhiyawēwin), an Algonquin language spoken in Canada, especially in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The speaker is talking about child rearing.

The recording comes from YouTube.

TeluguMay 30th, 2009 at 9:08 am

Hi. I was searching for Andhra Pradesh related blogs. Read some of your blog posts and wish to tell you that your blog is very informative. Thanks.