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.
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.
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.
It sounds like Romanian.
Romanian.
The intonation of the speaker is funny. Maybe it’s because this is from a religious themed programme.
Romanian
Indeed. Limba Română.
I thought of Romanian as well. But the intonation sounds to my ear a lot like some dialect of Italian.
I thought this was Spanish or Italian spoken with a russian accent(no offense to Romanians, though!)
Romanian… but with a very funny sounding accent/intonation.
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.
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.
I think it’s Romanian spoken by an Italian.
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.
romanian?
Definitely a Romance language, but not French, Spanish, or Italian. Romanian sounds plausible to me.
Wow, my initial thought was Romanian spoken by an Italian.
The language is indeed Romanian (limba română) which is spoken mainly in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine, and the recording comes from Vatican Radio.
Simon, the layout of this page is broken in every browser I tried except Firefox (IE, Opera, Chrome)
Halabund – it should be ok now.