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?

Hint: listen carefully to the recording. The language might not be the one you initially think it is.

21 thoughts on “Language quiz

  1. Well it’s basically Spanish, south American variety, and sounds like it’s spoken by a non-native speaker….but I guess that’s too straight forward for an Omniglot quiz…we’ll see.

  2. It’s Castillian with some dialectal features. But based mainly on the theme of the clip: Ladino?

  3. Surely this has to be the language of the Sephardic jews: “Ladino” Thanks for this recording. It’s the first time I hear this language and had absolutely no idea it was so close to modern castillian. Wow.

  4. Ladino is my first guess, but I understood almost everything (as opposed to 60-70 when I’ve heard Ladino before).

  5. Definitely Ladino.
    I’m a native Hebrew speaker and I understood the first phrase – שבוע טוב /shavua tov/ (good week). At that second I was sure it’s Hebrew, but then I heard Spanish words.
    The hint was correct – it’s not the language I originally thought it is 🙂
    Apart from that first phrase, everything sounds just like Spanish in a standard Israeli accent (except for the /r/ which is alveolar in the recording and not uvular).

  6. I was waiting for something I would know. Like Daniel I immidiately recognised the Hebrew ‘shavua tov’ (good week), which is my language, but then I heard something close to Spanish so obviously it had to be Ladino – a Jewish language. I think the recording took place in Israel since all the Hebrew words and names in it were pronounced in an Israeli accent (my accent). The recording is also concerned with Israeli issues – the terrorist organisation Hamas, and the current Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu are mentioned.

  7. my first impuls was that its clearly spanish…i didnt payed much attention to the details…
    to be frank, i have never heard of Ladino before… thanks for this interesting preview…i learned something new 😉

  8. Another hint for Ladino is that the broadcaster actually said “yisraeli” for Israeli, in addition to the accent.

  9. Whatever it is, it sure has a lot in common with Spanish. Ladino sounds plausible to me.

  10. (Without looking at previous comments) It obviously sounds a lot like Spanish but is not Spanish. Probably Ladino. If not maybe Galician.

  11. I don’t think it is Galician because I think that is closer to portuguese and this is very close to Spanish. So I would say Ladino too.

  12. My first thought was obviously Spanish, then I read the thing about it not being what I thought. So I thought either Catalan or Ladino. The Shavu’a Tov gave it away. 😉 So I guess, Ladino

  13. Like several others, I guessed Ladino, but I was very surprised at how close to modern Latin American Spanish it is, and, apart from a few words with a Hebrew sound to them, very easy to understand. I realized that Ladino written in the Roman alphabet is essentially Spanish with odd spelling (k instead of qu, ny instead of ñ, etc.), and a few sound substitutions (initial f instead of h), but I didn’t expect it to be so easy to understand when hearing it. The only clearly unusual pronunciation I noted was the g in Egipto (which maybe they spell Edjipto in Ladino).

  14. IT Is ladino espanyol or like my grand mother said”judeo espanyol”a langauge that the jews of spain and portugal spoked
    shoshana

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