Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
11 thoughts on “Language quiz”
At first, I was about to say Hawai’ian, but doesn’t sound right, so I’ll just go with some other Polynesian language.
I’m going to guess Hawai’ian, but I’m far from sure!
Something Malayo-Polynesian… I’ll make a wild guess that it’s Fijian.
And maybe I’m not even close.
moksha?
Tongan, Kingdom of Tonga (Pule’anga Tonga), South Pacific
Sounds definitely Polynesian. With the inventory of consonants I’m hearing here (/ʔ f h k l m n ŋ p r s t w/), I think we can narrow things down.
I don’t think it’s Hawaiian given that I hear lots of consonants that Hawaiian famously doesn’t have: /s f ŋ t/. (I might even be hearing both /l/ and /r/, which is a little surprising since Polynesian languages usually have just one or the other. I might be mishearing a contrast.)
Tahitian doesn’t have /s ŋ k/.
Maori and Rarotongan don’t have /s l/. Also, the /u/ vowel of both languages is very fronted, like the /u/ of New Zealand English, and unlike the examples in this song.
Rapa Nui doesn’t have /s f/.
Tokelauan doesn’t have /s/.
Samoan has all these sounds, but /k/ is just the colloquial version of /t/, so I wouldn’t expect both to exist in the same song.
So, my guess would be Tongan or Niuean. Since someone already guessed Tongan, I’ll just guess Niuean to be different 🙂
Sounds like a Spanish guitar but it’s Polynesian so is it Rapa Nui?
Polynesian family, similar to but not Hawaiian.
The answer is Niuafoʻou, a Polynesian language spoken on islands of Niuafoʻou and ʻEua in the kingdom of Tonga.
The recording comes from YouTube:
It is a song called Tali paea ki Vailahi.
Ah! Of course it would be the little sister of Tongan and Niuean in the Tongic group 🙂
The Wikipedia entry cites a dissertation that demonstrates that the [ɾ] sound is just a variant of /t/ between vowels. That explains how this Polynesian language ended up with both an /l/ and an r-like sound, when most of the languages in this group just have one or the other. Very cool!
O.k., Niuafo’ou and Tongan share the same phonemic inventory – apart perhaps from that intervocalic allophone of /t/ Sameer mentioned – so that’s why I just missed the mark … Tricky 🙂
At first, I was about to say Hawai’ian, but doesn’t sound right, so I’ll just go with some other Polynesian language.
I’m going to guess Hawai’ian, but I’m far from sure!
Something Malayo-Polynesian… I’ll make a wild guess that it’s Fijian.
And maybe I’m not even close.
moksha?
Tongan, Kingdom of Tonga (Pule’anga Tonga), South Pacific
Sounds definitely Polynesian. With the inventory of consonants I’m hearing here (/ʔ f h k l m n ŋ p r s t w/), I think we can narrow things down.
I don’t think it’s Hawaiian given that I hear lots of consonants that Hawaiian famously doesn’t have: /s f ŋ t/. (I might even be hearing both /l/ and /r/, which is a little surprising since Polynesian languages usually have just one or the other. I might be mishearing a contrast.)
Tahitian doesn’t have /s ŋ k/.
Maori and Rarotongan don’t have /s l/. Also, the /u/ vowel of both languages is very fronted, like the /u/ of New Zealand English, and unlike the examples in this song.
Rapa Nui doesn’t have /s f/.
Tokelauan doesn’t have /s/.
Samoan has all these sounds, but /k/ is just the colloquial version of /t/, so I wouldn’t expect both to exist in the same song.
So, my guess would be Tongan or Niuean. Since someone already guessed Tongan, I’ll just guess Niuean to be different 🙂
Sounds like a Spanish guitar but it’s Polynesian so is it Rapa Nui?
Polynesian family, similar to but not Hawaiian.
The answer is Niuafoʻou, a Polynesian language spoken on islands of Niuafoʻou and ʻEua in the kingdom of Tonga.
The recording comes from YouTube:
It is a song called Tali paea ki Vailahi.
Ah! Of course it would be the little sister of Tongan and Niuean in the Tongic group 🙂
The Wikipedia entry cites a dissertation that demonstrates that the [ɾ] sound is just a variant of /t/ between vowels. That explains how this Polynesian language ended up with both an /l/ and an r-like sound, when most of the languages in this group just have one or the other. Very cool!
O.k., Niuafo’ou and Tongan share the same phonemic inventory – apart perhaps from that intervocalic allophone of /t/ Sameer mentioned – so that’s why I just missed the mark … Tricky 🙂