Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
7 thoughts on “Language quiz”
It sounds like Swahili to me.
A complete Guess, something from Papua New Guinea.
Something from the Philippines that has been influences by Japanese.
My intuition says New Guinea, like Roger, but experience tells me that my intuition is not worth the effort that goes into it. Turning to careful listening, I don’t think the language has native s. There are three s’es around the middle, but two of them sound to me as “at least” and “access”. These words really stand out, as they also break the CV structure.
I’ll do something I haven’t done before: Overlaying two features in WALS. No fricatives + simple syllable structure yields five languages. Adding English influence, we can rule out the two South American languages and the one from Western New Guinea. That leaves Hawaiian and Yele. This is not Polynesian, so I’ll say Yele. And, if it’s correct, a rare victory for my intuition!
Here’s a clue – this is a Bantu language.
Yes, clearly. That’s embarassing.
The answer is Kikuyu (Gĩkũyũ), a Bantu language spoken mainly in the Central Province of Kenya.
It sounds like Swahili to me.
A complete Guess, something from Papua New Guinea.
Something from the Philippines that has been influences by Japanese.
My intuition says New Guinea, like Roger, but experience tells me that my intuition is not worth the effort that goes into it. Turning to careful listening, I don’t think the language has native s. There are three s’es around the middle, but two of them sound to me as “at least” and “access”. These words really stand out, as they also break the CV structure.
I’ll do something I haven’t done before: Overlaying two features in WALS. No fricatives + simple syllable structure yields five languages. Adding English influence, we can rule out the two South American languages and the one from Western New Guinea. That leaves Hawaiian and Yele. This is not Polynesian, so I’ll say Yele. And, if it’s correct, a rare victory for my intuition!
Here’s a clue – this is a Bantu language.
Yes, clearly. That’s embarassing.
The answer is Kikuyu (Gĩkũyũ), a Bantu language spoken mainly in the Central Province of Kenya.
The recording comes from Wikitongues.