Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
6 thoughts on “Language quiz”
Sounds like a dialect of Arabic, but I’m not sure which one.
Could it be Aramaic?
I don’t normally contribute to these quizzes, simply because my knowledge is not extensive enough. But surely I hear the word ‘Italiano’ towards the end of the recording, and the timbre of the words sounds to me much more like a Romance-type language – perhaps one of the ‘minor’ ones like Gallego or Occitan?
There is a bit of Italian at the end. She says in Italian that she speaks a little Italian, and also says in French and Greek that she speaks French and Greek. The main language she’s speaking isn’t any of these, or a dialect of Arabic, or Aramaic.
Definitely has that North African sound to it, which some phonological characteristics resembling Arabic and French but it’s neither of those. My guess is it’s a Berber language, but I’m not sure which one.
Given that the speaker says she also speaks Arabic, French, Italian, and Greek, this largely fits with her being from Tunisia. So, I’ll go with the main Berber language of that country: Shilha.
(It doesn’t hurt that it sounds like she says the Arabic word /ǰazīra/ ‘island’ near the beginning, and Shilha has many speakers on Tunisia’s Djerba Island. But, I suppose that could also be referencing /al-ǰazā’ir/ ‘the islands’ = ‘Algeria’)
The answer is Kabyle (Taqbaylit), a Berber language spoken mainly in Algeria.
Sounds like a dialect of Arabic, but I’m not sure which one.
Could it be Aramaic?
I don’t normally contribute to these quizzes, simply because my knowledge is not extensive enough. But surely I hear the word ‘Italiano’ towards the end of the recording, and the timbre of the words sounds to me much more like a Romance-type language – perhaps one of the ‘minor’ ones like Gallego or Occitan?
There is a bit of Italian at the end. She says in Italian that she speaks a little Italian, and also says in French and Greek that she speaks French and Greek. The main language she’s speaking isn’t any of these, or a dialect of Arabic, or Aramaic.
Definitely has that North African sound to it, which some phonological characteristics resembling Arabic and French but it’s neither of those. My guess is it’s a Berber language, but I’m not sure which one.
Given that the speaker says she also speaks Arabic, French, Italian, and Greek, this largely fits with her being from Tunisia. So, I’ll go with the main Berber language of that country: Shilha.
(It doesn’t hurt that it sounds like she says the Arabic word /ǰazīra/ ‘island’ near the beginning, and Shilha has many speakers on Tunisia’s Djerba Island. But, I suppose that could also be referencing /al-ǰazā’ir/ ‘the islands’ = ‘Algeria’)
The answer is Kabyle (Taqbaylit), a Berber language spoken mainly in Algeria.
The recording comes from YouTube: