Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
9 thoughts on “Language quiz”
It seems that today’s language is giving us some headache.
A shot in the dark: spoken in the Pacific Ocean it’s rather a Micronesian than a Polynesian language,
I want to say Rapa Nui or Tahitian, but I doubt I’m correct. Still, I thought I heard a word, pupuhi or pupui, that means “spear” or “spear gun” in Tahitian.
It seems that today’s language is giving us some headache.
A shot in the dark: spoken in the Pacific Ocean it’s rather a Micronesian than a Polynesian language,
Another shot in the dark with little confidence, North Eastern Siberia Chukchi Goldi etc
I want to say Rapa Nui or Tahitian, but I doubt I’m correct. Still, I thought I heard a word, pupuhi or pupui, that means “spear” or “spear gun” in Tahitian.
(Hmmm, one source says that “pupui” is the form of that word in Rarotonga. Could it be that?)
Definitely Eastern Polynesian. Not Rarotongan, don’t think it’s Tahitian … Has a k. Tuamotuan?
Or could be Marquesan.
The answer is Marquesan (ʻEo ʻenata), a Polynesian language spoken in the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia.
The recording comes from the GRN.
Simple curiosity… Where did you find this fragment?
I found it on the Global Recordings Network: http://globalrecordings.net/en/program/C21611