18 thoughts on “Language quiz

  1. The intonation of the speaker is funny. Maybe it’s because this is from a religious themed programme.

  2. I thought this was Spanish or Italian spoken with a russian accent(no offense to Romanians, though!)

  3. The bizarre intonation leads me to believe this is a radio or perhaps more likely TV news/info report. It’s reminiscent of the unnatural style that has become nearly standard in US TV and radio (and its imitators) over the past couple of decades, a style that demands that news readers and reporters talk in an extra-loud volume at (rather than to) their audience, using artificial intonation and unnatural stress patterns, all the while jerking their heads up and down and from side to side in a way no-one does while speaking naturally.

  4. Since it all seems to be about Pope Benedict and some Monsignore, I’m sure it’s a broadcast of Radio Vatican, which also explains the liturgical intonation.

  5. Yeah, the intonation structure is really fascinating. I was thinking Romanian or something close to it too. Nice to see my instincts are likely correct.

  6. Definitely a Romance language, but not French, Spanish, or Italian. Romanian sounds plausible to me.

  7. Simon, the layout of this page is broken in every browser I tried except Firefox (IE, Opera, Chrome)

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