Do you know or can you guess the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
9 thoughts on “Language Quiz”
I’m going with Africa! Well, that narrows it down, doesn’t it? 😉
Right continent. Can you be a bit more specific?
@ Simon. Hmmm. Not right away; my knowledge of the African languages is very limited. But going by the sound inventory: I think I’m hearing tones as well as voiced labial–velar plosives (gb). Of the sample languages listed on the relevant Wiki page, the only one that seems to have a [x] as well seems to be Ega, so that would be my guess for now. I could be way off though 🙂
Could it be Igbo? I remember when the war in Biafra was taking place they referred to it as the Ibo tribe but I think they have since changed the name to Igbo. Since I thought I heard the word “ibo”
or “igbo” and it’s in Africa I will go with that.
@ Simon: It doesn’t seem my latest comment from yesterday is coming through (possibly because of the hyperlinks), but my guess for now is: Ega, a.k.a. Egwa or Diés.
Africa is a massive continent with several unrelated language families, so I have no idea why they sound so superficially homogeneous to me and so many other people. I’m pretty sure this recording is Niger-Congo but I have no idea which branch
Having listened to some clips I hazard to guess it also might be Guere or Jabo.
@ CDK: The phenomenon where unrelated languages share certain similarities due to contact is also known as a sprachbund: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprachbund.
The language is Aja (Adja), a Gbe language spoken in western Benin and southeastern Togo.
I’m going with Africa! Well, that narrows it down, doesn’t it? 😉
Right continent. Can you be a bit more specific?
@ Simon. Hmmm. Not right away; my knowledge of the African languages is very limited. But going by the sound inventory: I think I’m hearing tones as well as voiced labial–velar plosives (gb). Of the sample languages listed on the relevant Wiki page, the only one that seems to have a [x] as well seems to be Ega, so that would be my guess for now. I could be way off though 🙂
Could it be Igbo? I remember when the war in Biafra was taking place they referred to it as the Ibo tribe but I think they have since changed the name to Igbo. Since I thought I heard the word “ibo”
or “igbo” and it’s in Africa I will go with that.
@ Simon: It doesn’t seem my latest comment from yesterday is coming through (possibly because of the hyperlinks), but my guess for now is: Ega, a.k.a. Egwa or Diés.
Africa is a massive continent with several unrelated language families, so I have no idea why they sound so superficially homogeneous to me and so many other people. I’m pretty sure this recording is Niger-Congo but I have no idea which branch
Having listened to some clips I hazard to guess it also might be Guere or Jabo.
@ CDK: The phenomenon where unrelated languages share certain similarities due to contact is also known as a sprachbund: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprachbund.
The language is Aja (Adja), a Gbe language spoken in western Benin and southeastern Togo.
The recording comes from YouTube: