Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
10 thoughts on “Language Quiz”
Some of the sounds remind me a bit if Navajo but I am not sure why. Maybe the nasality? I do think, however it’s a North American indigenous language, maybe from the US acific Northwest US or British Columbia coast?
Nasals, ejectives, and an apparent absence of /e/. Interesting phonology.
I will need to listen over and over again, but on my first impressions I thought of minority languages of southwest China / the Tibetan Plateau / the Indochinese highlands, which have lots of syllabic consonants, unrounded non-front vowels, fricatives, and tone distinctions. Am I in the right region?
My guess was along the same lines as Hank, something Amerindian, especially with those ejective fricatives, but I don’t know that I’m brave enough to disagree with Sameer.
Yes, that is the right region.
I have no idea, Simon.
I wish I could narrow further, but I’m at a loss. I don’t think it’s Austroasiatic or Tai-Kadai, as those families have very characteristic sounds. That leaves Hmong-Mien and Tibeto-Burman. I also don’t think it’s in the Sinitic or Burmish branches of Tibeto-Burman, but it could still be from almost any other branch of the Tibeto-Burman. I keep coming back to the Loloish and Qiangic branches based on the very complex consonant phonologies of those branches.
Here’s a clue – this is a Lolo-Burmese language.
Is it possibly Lipo?
The answer is Hani (Haqniqdoq), a tibeto-Burman language spoken in southern China and northern Vietnam.I actually met a Hani speaker at the Polyglot Gathering in Bratislava last week, which gave me the idea of chosing Hani for the quiz. I didn’t get a recording from her though.
Some of the sounds remind me a bit if Navajo but I am not sure why. Maybe the nasality? I do think, however it’s a North American indigenous language, maybe from the US acific Northwest US or British Columbia coast?
Nasals, ejectives, and an apparent absence of /e/. Interesting phonology.
I will need to listen over and over again, but on my first impressions I thought of minority languages of southwest China / the Tibetan Plateau / the Indochinese highlands, which have lots of syllabic consonants, unrounded non-front vowels, fricatives, and tone distinctions. Am I in the right region?
My guess was along the same lines as Hank, something Amerindian, especially with those ejective fricatives, but I don’t know that I’m brave enough to disagree with Sameer.
Yes, that is the right region.
I have no idea, Simon.
I wish I could narrow further, but I’m at a loss. I don’t think it’s Austroasiatic or Tai-Kadai, as those families have very characteristic sounds. That leaves Hmong-Mien and Tibeto-Burman. I also don’t think it’s in the Sinitic or Burmish branches of Tibeto-Burman, but it could still be from almost any other branch of the Tibeto-Burman. I keep coming back to the Loloish and Qiangic branches based on the very complex consonant phonologies of those branches.
Here’s a clue – this is a Lolo-Burmese language.
Is it possibly Lipo?
The answer is Hani (Haqniqdoq), a tibeto-Burman language spoken in southern China and northern Vietnam.I actually met a Hani speaker at the Polyglot Gathering in Bratislava last week, which gave me the idea of chosing Hani for the quiz. I didn’t get a recording from her though.
The recording comes from YouTube: