Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
5 thoughts on “Language quiz”
I feel completely lost. I hear lots of nasalized vowels, some central/back unrounded vowels, quite a few [tɕ]-like affricates, maybe some voiceless [m̥]’s and dark [ɫ]’s.
I’ve learned that if I’m totally lost, I should go for Melanesia. But that doesn’t sound right here either. Maybe Mainland Southeast Asia?
Any hints?
Sameer – this is a language spoken in Mexico.
Wow I was way off. Okay well it’s not Nahuatl or a Mayan language, so I’m going to go for an Oto-Manguean language. It only helps that I hear lots of labialized velars /kw, gw/ in the recording and O-M languages all have them from the proto language. Of course that family has soooo much internal diversity I don’t really know where to start, but seeing that the Mixtec branch has many of the properties I’m hearing, I’ll go for that. (Plus it’s spoken in an immigrant community not far from where I live, so there’s that, ha.)
The language is Chiltepec-Tlacoatzintepec Chinantec, a variety of Chinantec spoken in San Juan Bautista Tlacoatzintepec and nearby towns in northern Oaxaca in Mexico.
I feel completely lost. I hear lots of nasalized vowels, some central/back unrounded vowels, quite a few [tɕ]-like affricates, maybe some voiceless [m̥]’s and dark [ɫ]’s.
I’ve learned that if I’m totally lost, I should go for Melanesia. But that doesn’t sound right here either. Maybe Mainland Southeast Asia?
Any hints?
Sameer – this is a language spoken in Mexico.
Wow I was way off. Okay well it’s not Nahuatl or a Mayan language, so I’m going to go for an Oto-Manguean language. It only helps that I hear lots of labialized velars /kw, gw/ in the recording and O-M languages all have them from the proto language. Of course that family has soooo much internal diversity I don’t really know where to start, but seeing that the Mixtec branch has many of the properties I’m hearing, I’ll go for that. (Plus it’s spoken in an immigrant community not far from where I live, so there’s that, ha.)
The language is Chiltepec-Tlacoatzintepec Chinantec, a variety of Chinantec spoken in San Juan Bautista Tlacoatzintepec and nearby towns in northern Oaxaca in Mexico.
The recording comes from YouTube.
Ah, I should have posted a guess — I was thinking Mexico, though I didn’t (and don’t) have the chops to localize it beyond that.