Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
14 thoughts on “Language Quiz”
It’s very weird, it sounds like French except I don’t understand anything. So I guess it’s a regional language of France. Maybe an Occitan dialect?
I get the French vibe from the recording, but there is something about it that makes me want to say it’s a Russian-style language.
It sounds like a Creole to me – Haitian, perhaps?
The first speaker very strongly does the “r —> w” that says French-Africain creole to me, but the way they both end words with “-oo”, like “tempoo” and “concoursoo” sound Portuguese/Brazilian. So I’m going to say this is from French Guiana, which is departement of France, has significant population from Africa, and is next to Brazil.
Occitan? Monégasque?
It is obviously based in French but doesn’t quite sound like Haitian Creole. Might be Réunion Creole but seeing as how I just saw a posting on Monégasque that might be just the thing.
Sounds like it’s from a film or TV show. I don’t think Monégasque has enough speakers for that, but Occitan does, so I’m going with that.
I think it is Corsican.
Corsican is, I understand, closely related to Italian. This ‘mystery language’, with its close affinity with French (at least in sound), is therefore unlikely to be Corsican.
Agreed that it has a lot of French-like phonology. I’m thinking a regional language close to Metropolitan French, rather than a creole. For some reason, I’m thinking more north-of-French rather than south, so more like Walloon? It’s not one of the Channel Island varieties (Jersey French, Guernsey French) though, as those varieties have very distinctive vowels and diphthongs, and don’t really have that French “r”.
Others have already guessed Occitan. Breton?
There are bits of Spanish like”parece que tienes, “qué guay” … so I’d say something on the Spanish-French border. I was going to say it’s Aranés, but I it’s too French sounding – so some form of Gascon maybe? Or Occitan?
Maybe Catalan?
The answer is Monégasque (Munegascu), a dialect of Ligurian spoken in Monaco.
It’s very weird, it sounds like French except I don’t understand anything. So I guess it’s a regional language of France. Maybe an Occitan dialect?
I get the French vibe from the recording, but there is something about it that makes me want to say it’s a Russian-style language.
It sounds like a Creole to me – Haitian, perhaps?
The first speaker very strongly does the “r —> w” that says French-Africain creole to me, but the way they both end words with “-oo”, like “tempoo” and “concoursoo” sound Portuguese/Brazilian. So I’m going to say this is from French Guiana, which is departement of France, has significant population from Africa, and is next to Brazil.
Occitan? Monégasque?
It is obviously based in French but doesn’t quite sound like Haitian Creole. Might be Réunion Creole but seeing as how I just saw a posting on Monégasque that might be just the thing.
Sounds like it’s from a film or TV show. I don’t think Monégasque has enough speakers for that, but Occitan does, so I’m going with that.
I think it is Corsican.
Corsican is, I understand, closely related to Italian. This ‘mystery language’, with its close affinity with French (at least in sound), is therefore unlikely to be Corsican.
Agreed that it has a lot of French-like phonology. I’m thinking a regional language close to Metropolitan French, rather than a creole. For some reason, I’m thinking more north-of-French rather than south, so more like Walloon? It’s not one of the Channel Island varieties (Jersey French, Guernsey French) though, as those varieties have very distinctive vowels and diphthongs, and don’t really have that French “r”.
Others have already guessed Occitan. Breton?
There are bits of Spanish like”parece que tienes, “qué guay” … so I’d say something on the Spanish-French border. I was going to say it’s Aranés, but I it’s too French sounding – so some form of Gascon maybe? Or Occitan?
Maybe Catalan?
The answer is Monégasque (Munegascu), a dialect of Ligurian spoken in Monaco.
The recording comes from YouTube: