If this was a normal language quiz and we didn’t have the amazing selection of the world’s 7000 to choose from (!) I’d have said Thai straight away. Maybe it’s Shan, or Lanna etc.. or maybe it is from China and it’s one of the Zhuang languages. Just sounds very Thai to me, let’s see how well this guess pans out…
Well ( IMHO) there’s no mistaking this for ANYTHING but an Asiatic tonal language. Which one we will have to do some digging to find out which one.
I’ll guess it’s a minority language in China since it sounds so very almost Mandarin Chinese.
Cantonese?
It seems to have such a range of tines that I thought of Cantonese as well.
It sounds like Chinese with a Khmer accent.
Xiang?
I think I hear a word-final consonant at 00:07 – perhaps (unreleased?) /t/. That probably rules out most varieties of Mandarin.
If this was a normal language quiz and we didn’t have the amazing selection of the world’s 7000 to choose from (!) I’d have said Thai straight away. Maybe it’s Shan, or Lanna etc.. or maybe it is from China and it’s one of the Zhuang languages. Just sounds very Thai to me, let’s see how well this guess pans out…
Karl,
Great suggestions. To me, this is what makes these quizzes so much fun!
Perhaps a language spoken in Guandong or somewhere in that area.
Hank,
thanks, I agree, let’s see what happens!
The language is Hlai, a group of Kam-Tai languages spoken in central Hainan Province in southern China.
The recording comes from YouTube