Do you know or can you guess which language it’s in and where it’s spoken?
14 thoughts on “Name the language”
Urdu?
(Your comment was a bit too short. Please go back and try again.)
Sounded North American on first listening, which was quickly confirmed by Googling for one of the more idiosyncratic names mentioned. But I’m not going to give away the exact answer, as this way of finding it out was not entirely fair 🙂
Same as Szabolcs. I even found two different names on the same webpage.
Western Runaway (68-FBB-bb).
I didn’t google it, but I’m guessing either Cherokee, Creek (Muscogee), or Chickasaw.
I heard Holdenville a couple of times, which is the name of a town in Oklahoma, where I’m from. And the speaker had a strong southern US accent.
Hausa language it
Sorry for the ill-formatted last comment, but I wanted to find out how many characters are needed for the comment not being a bit too short. Why are a bit too short comments forbidden? I find it a bit too annoying.
Nevertheless, my guess holds: Hausa language.
With the uvulars, the voiceless laterals, and the overall rhythm and intonation, this sounds like a member of the Eskimo-Aleut langugage family to me. I don’t think the speaker’s accent in English is southern US: it’s more like the kind of accent common to many people from the indigenous language groups of North America: something about the phonologies of their languages generally makes their speakers “clip” open syllables when speaking English. As for the place names, I think they just come with the topic they are talking about and don’t necessarily say anything about where the language itself is spoken.
With the voiced alveopalatal ‘zh’, I’m going to guess Aleut or maybe a western, Inupiaq Eskimoic language. We’ll see if this is a more disastrous gamble than my “anything but Igbo” last week! ;-D
I think I found the very list of information that was being read out there. Without that, my guess was going to be an aboriginal North American language, based on the US/Canadian English accent I heard on pronouncing the names.
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard Ojibwe, but I think it’s Ojibwe.
“I didn’t google it, but I’m guessing either Cherokee, Creek (Muscogee), or Chickasaw.
I heard Holdenville a couple of times, which is the name of a town in Oklahoma, where I’m from. And the speaker had a strong southern US accent.” Saith Nathen Marley.
I know it isn’t Cherokee, Creek, or Chickishaw. I did however hear Holdenville so my guess is Seminole or Apache.
I followed other people’s lead in Googling around for the English-language references and the YouTube videos these led me to convince me my guess is wrong. I hear certain words recurring in the videos that are exactly what we hear here. That these are the descendants of exiles from Alligatorland, I’m now certain.
When I was in Northern Australia, somewhere deep in the bushland, I heard voices like this coming out of a billabong in the middle of the night…
The answer is Creek (Mvskoke), which is spoken mainly in Oklahoma and Florida.
Urdu?
(Your comment was a bit too short. Please go back and try again.)
Sounded North American on first listening, which was quickly confirmed by Googling for one of the more idiosyncratic names mentioned. But I’m not going to give away the exact answer, as this way of finding it out was not entirely fair 🙂
Same as Szabolcs. I even found two different names on the same webpage.
Western Runaway (68-FBB-bb).
I didn’t google it, but I’m guessing either Cherokee, Creek (Muscogee), or Chickasaw.
I heard Holdenville a couple of times, which is the name of a town in Oklahoma, where I’m from. And the speaker had a strong southern US accent.
Hausa language it
Sorry for the ill-formatted last comment, but I wanted to find out how many characters are needed for the comment not being a bit too short. Why are a bit too short comments forbidden? I find it a bit too annoying.
Nevertheless, my guess holds: Hausa language.
With the uvulars, the voiceless laterals, and the overall rhythm and intonation, this sounds like a member of the Eskimo-Aleut langugage family to me. I don’t think the speaker’s accent in English is southern US: it’s more like the kind of accent common to many people from the indigenous language groups of North America: something about the phonologies of their languages generally makes their speakers “clip” open syllables when speaking English. As for the place names, I think they just come with the topic they are talking about and don’t necessarily say anything about where the language itself is spoken.
With the voiced alveopalatal ‘zh’, I’m going to guess Aleut or maybe a western, Inupiaq Eskimoic language. We’ll see if this is a more disastrous gamble than my “anything but Igbo” last week! ;-D
I think I found the very list of information that was being read out there. Without that, my guess was going to be an aboriginal North American language, based on the US/Canadian English accent I heard on pronouncing the names.
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard Ojibwe, but I think it’s Ojibwe.
“I didn’t google it, but I’m guessing either Cherokee, Creek (Muscogee), or Chickasaw.
I heard Holdenville a couple of times, which is the name of a town in Oklahoma, where I’m from. And the speaker had a strong southern US accent.” Saith Nathen Marley.
I know it isn’t Cherokee, Creek, or Chickishaw. I did however hear Holdenville so my guess is Seminole or Apache.
I followed other people’s lead in Googling around for the English-language references and the YouTube videos these led me to convince me my guess is wrong. I hear certain words recurring in the videos that are exactly what we hear here. That these are the descendants of exiles from Alligatorland, I’m now certain.
When I was in Northern Australia, somewhere deep in the bushland, I heard voices like this coming out of a billabong in the middle of the night…
The answer is Creek (Mvskoke), which is spoken mainly in Oklahoma and Florida.
The recording comes from the Seminole Nation Radio Show