Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
10 thoughts on “Language quiz”
I’m hearing a Tai-Kadai-ish feeling to this language. Yet a recent one was also Tai-Kadai *hmm*. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been learning some serious Lao lately.
Or maybe something like Tibetan.
My feelings are less precise in nature than yours, but my first reaction was “South East Asian again”, and somewhere towards the northwestern end of the region. Later I came to think that it might even be Amazonian. But I’ll stick to my first impression and say Karen. Since that’s a wild guess in itself, I have no idea which particular language.
I don’t know if the shouting is throwing me off course (it’s actually very distressing for me, anyone else?). But it also sounds Southeast Asian to me (kind of Tai-Kadai as well), partly because of the prevalent unreleased final -p -t -k that are characteristic of that language area, and something of a tonal nature maybe, but it’s harder to determine because there might be interference from intonation from the way he keeps increasing stress through the end of utterances.
It sounds more southern, so I’ll at least wager that it is not spoken in China but south of it.
I’m sure I’m completely wrong, but this almost sounds like a French-based creole, though I can’t recognize any of the words. Seychellois Creole?
Not sure, if he really mentioned ‘Malay’ at the beginning or simply my ears need a cleaning.
Since I don’t know what Dayak sounds like, I just go for that.
Sounds SE Asian to me as well. I’m going to guess a Tai-Kadai language too, but it’s purely a random hunch. The shouting/emphasis at the end of each sentence is a bit unsettling.
I’m not sure if he’s shouting, or just talks like that normally.
The answer is Oy or Oi, a Mon-Khmer language spoken in Attopeu Province in Laos by about 15,000 people. This is the Khen Sang dialect.
I’m hearing a Tai-Kadai-ish feeling to this language. Yet a recent one was also Tai-Kadai *hmm*. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been learning some serious Lao lately.
Or maybe something like Tibetan.
My feelings are less precise in nature than yours, but my first reaction was “South East Asian again”, and somewhere towards the northwestern end of the region. Later I came to think that it might even be Amazonian. But I’ll stick to my first impression and say Karen. Since that’s a wild guess in itself, I have no idea which particular language.
I don’t know if the shouting is throwing me off course (it’s actually very distressing for me, anyone else?). But it also sounds Southeast Asian to me (kind of Tai-Kadai as well), partly because of the prevalent unreleased final -p -t -k that are characteristic of that language area, and something of a tonal nature maybe, but it’s harder to determine because there might be interference from intonation from the way he keeps increasing stress through the end of utterances.
It sounds more southern, so I’ll at least wager that it is not spoken in China but south of it.
I’m sure I’m completely wrong, but this almost sounds like a French-based creole, though I can’t recognize any of the words. Seychellois Creole?
Not sure, if he really mentioned ‘Malay’ at the beginning or simply my ears need a cleaning.
Since I don’t know what Dayak sounds like, I just go for that.
Sounds SE Asian to me as well. I’m going to guess a Tai-Kadai language too, but it’s purely a random hunch. The shouting/emphasis at the end of each sentence is a bit unsettling.
I’m not sure if he’s shouting, or just talks like that normally.
The answer is Oy or Oi, a Mon-Khmer language spoken in Attopeu Province in Laos by about 15,000 people. This is the Khen Sang dialect.
The recording comes from the Global Recordings Network.
Given that all those recordings are biblical, I thought it a bit odd that he was shouting.
When I listened to it I took it to be not shouting but the rhetorics of a political speech or perhaps a sermon by a lay preacher.