9 thoughts on “Language quiz

  1. No idea, either. But, if my ears serve me right, the guy is talking about an “appointment”, “right now”, some “system” and “coming on the subway”. So, at least, it seems to be not one of the texts from the Bible Simon usually chooses. The answer to “Do you know where it’s spoken?” could be “In that case – in New York by an immigrant from West Africa”, lol.
    But, maybe my imagination is running away with me.
    BTW, Happy New Year to all of you, especially to you, Simon, and keep on feeding us with languages noone has ever heard of.

  2. Also mystified could be a toothless Finnic language from Northern Russia or of course anything else.
    Good new year to everyone.

  3. Daydreamer – he isn’t saying any of those things, except in your imagination.

    Here’s a clue – this language is spoken in North America.

  4. It sounds like an Iroquoian language, but which one it might be, I have no idea. (And he uses the English name “Jesus” several times, beginning with the first word in the recording.)

    Of course it could be from another of the numerous language families further to the south and west, but the prevalence of /h/ in various positions, together with the neutral vowel, nasal vowels (at least I think I hear them) and high tone associated with accented syllables, certainly make this sound Iroquoian to my ears. The one thing that makes me wonder is the fact he has /m/ all over the place; Mohawk at least doesn’t have that sound (it uses /w/ instead, e.g. Wà:li for ‘Mary’), so perhaps this is a southern Iroquoian language, possibly Tuscarora.

  5. It sounds more Algonquian to me than Iroquoian.

    I’ll take another one of those wild guesses and say Cree or Blackfoot.

  6. Definitely sounds like a Native American language to me, but the velar nasal throws me off. How about, let’s see…Washo?

  7. It seems that nobody is going to get this one. The answer is Shoshone (Sosoni’ daigwape), an Uto-Aztecan language spoken in Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming in the USA.

    The recording comes from the GRN.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *