Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
6 thoughts on “Language Quiz”
It’s Sinitic, but not necessarily Mandarin.
The first part sounds very much like a Mandarin song but what is said thereafter befuddles me. There is a “u” sound that seems a bit Japanese but it’s anyone’s guess. Hakka, anyone.
It’s a dialect spoken around Shanghai. Malu(馬陸) town, to be precise. It’s not far from the one in the downtown which is recognised as Shanghainese, but the latter is a later emergence while the one in the tape is a more authentic ‘Shanghainese’ colloquialism.
I was, actually, really surprised and joyous when I heard the chant. Though born and grown up in the city, I am able to understand it with care.
There is nothing more to say. Kang has already said.
The only thing I knew was that it was not southern Chinese, since Cantonese and other languages in the area are characterized by final syllables ending in consonants: p, t and k, and here I did not hear them.
The answer is Suzhounese (苏州闲话 / sou tseu ghe gho), a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in Suzhou and southeast Jiangsu province in China. At least that’s what the description of the video says, I think, but Kang has said otherwise above.
It’s Sinitic, but not necessarily Mandarin.
The first part sounds very much like a Mandarin song but what is said thereafter befuddles me. There is a “u” sound that seems a bit Japanese but it’s anyone’s guess. Hakka, anyone.
It’s a dialect spoken around Shanghai. Malu(馬陸) town, to be precise. It’s not far from the one in the downtown which is recognised as Shanghainese, but the latter is a later emergence while the one in the tape is a more authentic ‘Shanghainese’ colloquialism.
I was, actually, really surprised and joyous when I heard the chant. Though born and grown up in the city, I am able to understand it with care.
There is nothing more to say. Kang has already said.
The only thing I knew was that it was not southern Chinese, since Cantonese and other languages in the area are characterized by final syllables ending in consonants: p, t and k, and here I did not hear them.
The answer is Suzhounese (苏州闲话 / sou tseu ghe gho), a variety of Wu Chinese spoken in Suzhou and southeast Jiangsu province in China. At least that’s what the description of the video says, I think, but Kang has said otherwise above.
The recording comes from YouTube:
Somehow, I have a feeling a lot of people confuse a lot of Wu varieties spoken near Shanghai for Suzhounese.