Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
6 thoughts on “Language quiz”
Sounds Sinitic, but not Mandarin.
Reminds me of Thai but without the tones. Khmer?
It’s not Khmer or Thai, and I don’t think it’s from either of their families. I agree with Daniel that it sounds Sinitic. The affricates, retroflexes, and “apical vowels” strike me as Mandarin-like, even though this is definitely NOT Mandarin. Is it a Sinitic language at all? Or are we totally off?
It’s a Loloish language, and part of the Sino-Tibetan language family.
That makes sense. Even though they’re more distantly related, I’ve always been struck by how similar Mandarin sounds to the Loloish languages, just on a superficially phonetic level – even more than to its other Sinitic sister languages.
Too bad I don’t know anything about individual Loloish languages to be able to make an educated guess though.
The language is Lisu (LI-SU) – a Tibeto-Burman language spoken mainly in southern China and northern Burma (Myanmar), and also in Thailand and India.
Sounds Sinitic, but not Mandarin.
Reminds me of Thai but without the tones. Khmer?
It’s not Khmer or Thai, and I don’t think it’s from either of their families. I agree with Daniel that it sounds Sinitic. The affricates, retroflexes, and “apical vowels” strike me as Mandarin-like, even though this is definitely NOT Mandarin. Is it a Sinitic language at all? Or are we totally off?
It’s a Loloish language, and part of the Sino-Tibetan language family.
That makes sense. Even though they’re more distantly related, I’ve always been struck by how similar Mandarin sounds to the Loloish languages, just on a superficially phonetic level – even more than to its other Sinitic sister languages.
Too bad I don’t know anything about individual Loloish languages to be able to make an educated guess though.
The language is Lisu (LI-SU) – a Tibeto-Burman language spoken mainly in southern China and northern Burma (Myanmar), and also in Thailand and India.
The recording comes from the GRN.