Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
10 thoughts on “Language quiz”
Something tonal…
Not having the slightest idea which language it actually is, I guess it’s spoken in sub-Saharan, maybe Western, Africa.
Btw, a happy Easter holiday to y’all, especially to you, Simon. Keep on torturing us.
It’s a Ryukyu language- Probably not Okinawan, but one of the other languages in the region.
d.m.f.
Really? It sounds like maybe it’s some Bantoid language (or at least something African, like Daydreamer said). I don’t hear anything that particularly sounds like Japanese. But I won’t throw out your suggestion yet! 🙂
Okinawa, or a southern Malay island language
Daydreamer is more or less in the right area – it’s spoken in East Africa and is possibly a Nilo-Saharan language.
Luo? Dinka? Nubian? Maasai?
perhaps nuer
The answer is Ik (Icetot), a Kuliak language, possibly belonging to the Nilo-Saharan language family spoken by about 10,000 people in Uganda.
From what Wikipedia says, it seems that the subgrouping of the Kuliak languages is controversial not so much regarding whether they are Nilo-Saharan, but rather regarding their subgrouping *within* Nilo-Saharan. (That is, are they part of the Eastern Sudanic branch of Nilo-Saharan, or are they an independent branch within Nilo-Saharan?). Granted, Nilo-Saharan itself is a controversial grouping, but this is the only sense in which Ik’s membership within Nilo-Saharan is questionable, AFAICT.
Something tonal…
Not having the slightest idea which language it actually is, I guess it’s spoken in sub-Saharan, maybe Western, Africa.
Btw, a happy Easter holiday to y’all, especially to you, Simon. Keep on torturing us.
It’s a Ryukyu language- Probably not Okinawan, but one of the other languages in the region.
d.m.f.
Really? It sounds like maybe it’s some Bantoid language (or at least something African, like Daydreamer said). I don’t hear anything that particularly sounds like Japanese. But I won’t throw out your suggestion yet! 🙂
Okinawa, or a southern Malay island language
Daydreamer is more or less in the right area – it’s spoken in East Africa and is possibly a Nilo-Saharan language.
Luo? Dinka? Nubian? Maasai?
perhaps nuer
The answer is Ik (Icetot), a Kuliak language, possibly belonging to the Nilo-Saharan language family spoken by about 10,000 people in Uganda.
The recording comes from the GRN.
From what Wikipedia says, it seems that the subgrouping of the Kuliak languages is controversial not so much regarding whether they are Nilo-Saharan, but rather regarding their subgrouping *within* Nilo-Saharan. (That is, are they part of the Eastern Sudanic branch of Nilo-Saharan, or are they an independent branch within Nilo-Saharan?). Granted, Nilo-Saharan itself is a controversial grouping, but this is the only sense in which Ik’s membership within Nilo-Saharan is questionable, AFAICT.