Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
6 thoughts on “Language Quiz”
Taking a wild, wild guess but it’s either something from the Caucasus or the Canadian west coast?
Your second guess is on the right continent, but this language is spoken further south.
Well, if it’s spoken farther south I think I recognize Navajo well enough to know it’s not that but for some reason (and I haven’t a clue as to why) maybe it’s Hopi? Or perhaps one of those endangered languages spoken by 6 to 8 people somewhere in California? Again, just a guess. Incidentally I thoroughly enjoy these blogs!
The English words “God”, “Adam”, and “Eve”, pronounced in North American English (the vowel in “God” being a giveaway) suggests an indigenous language of North America. That plus the nasalized vowels and many affricates fits as well – many Athabaskan, Muskogean, Siouan, and Iroquoian languages would fit these characteristics, but I’d cut Iroquoian given that I also hear several labial sounds like /p/ here, and Iroquoian languages are famous for not having native labial sounds. So is this by chance a language of the Athabaskan, Muskogean, or Siouan language families?
Probably not from the Pacific Northwest sprachsbund. There aren’t anywhere near the number of complicated consonant clusters those languages contain.
I heard /ts’/ in both initial and final positions. Does that help narrow it down?
The answer is Quechan / Yuma (Kwtsaan), a Yuman language spoken in southeastern California and southwestern Arizona in the USA.
Taking a wild, wild guess but it’s either something from the Caucasus or the Canadian west coast?
Your second guess is on the right continent, but this language is spoken further south.
Well, if it’s spoken farther south I think I recognize Navajo well enough to know it’s not that but for some reason (and I haven’t a clue as to why) maybe it’s Hopi? Or perhaps one of those endangered languages spoken by 6 to 8 people somewhere in California? Again, just a guess. Incidentally I thoroughly enjoy these blogs!
The English words “God”, “Adam”, and “Eve”, pronounced in North American English (the vowel in “God” being a giveaway) suggests an indigenous language of North America. That plus the nasalized vowels and many affricates fits as well – many Athabaskan, Muskogean, Siouan, and Iroquoian languages would fit these characteristics, but I’d cut Iroquoian given that I also hear several labial sounds like /p/ here, and Iroquoian languages are famous for not having native labial sounds. So is this by chance a language of the Athabaskan, Muskogean, or Siouan language families?
Probably not from the Pacific Northwest sprachsbund. There aren’t anywhere near the number of complicated consonant clusters those languages contain.
I heard /ts’/ in both initial and final positions. Does that help narrow it down?
The answer is Quechan / Yuma (Kwtsaan), a Yuman language spoken in southeastern California and southwestern Arizona in the USA.
The recording comes from YouTube: