Do you know or can you guess the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
12 thoughts on “Language Quiz”
Portuguese, because I could recognize some Spanish sounding words and grammar but it sounded too different.
It certainly seems to have elements of Spanish in it in both accent and timbre of voice but I am stymied by what also sounds like clicks which I associate with southern Africa.
Something from the Philippines? This will require a bit more research!
sounds like a high-acrolect Spanish based creole.
Yes, there are Spanish words in this recording (\”y\”, \”triste\” etc.) but to me it doesn\’t sound like one of the creole languages of the Americas (such as Palenquero). And the \”clicks\” could be ejectives, I suppose: /q\’/, /k\’/ and the like. So therefore I am going to guess that it is an indigenous language of Latin America – Aymara or Qechua, for example – with some high-frequency Spanish loans.
P.S.: Sorry for the (wrong) back-slashes.
Is it possibly Itza?
It’s not Itza, but it is a Mayan language.
Ah, then. Perhaps Ki’che’?
This seems more like a mixture of Mayan and Spanish, something like ‘Mayañol’, due to the lack of knowledge of their own language. In the examples in Jakaltek it’s where I observe this lack the most. Is it maybe Jakaltek / Popti?
1. Yes, it could be Jakaltek, for the very distinctive (and frequent) q’-sound in the recording. On the other hand, many Mayan languages feature this voiceless uvular ejective stop … 2. I am not sure about lack of knowledge because Turkish or Hindi speakers for example use Arabic loans like lakin and ya’ani in their discourse all the time.
Now knowing that it’s Mayan, U heard </q/ and /Χ// . I think that with that, and the susceptibiility to Spanish oanwodrs, that it may be Mocho’'.
The language is Poqomam, a Mayan language spoken in parts of central Guatemala.
Portuguese, because I could recognize some Spanish sounding words and grammar but it sounded too different.
It certainly seems to have elements of Spanish in it in both accent and timbre of voice but I am stymied by what also sounds like clicks which I associate with southern Africa.
Something from the Philippines? This will require a bit more research!
sounds like a high-acrolect Spanish based creole.
Yes, there are Spanish words in this recording (\”y\”, \”triste\” etc.) but to me it doesn\’t sound like one of the creole languages of the Americas (such as Palenquero). And the \”clicks\” could be ejectives, I suppose: /q\’/, /k\’/ and the like. So therefore I am going to guess that it is an indigenous language of Latin America – Aymara or Qechua, for example – with some high-frequency Spanish loans.
P.S.: Sorry for the (wrong) back-slashes.
Is it possibly Itza?
It’s not Itza, but it is a Mayan language.
Ah, then. Perhaps Ki’che’?
This seems more like a mixture of Mayan and Spanish, something like ‘Mayañol’, due to the lack of knowledge of their own language. In the examples in Jakaltek it’s where I observe this lack the most. Is it maybe Jakaltek / Popti?
1. Yes, it could be Jakaltek, for the very distinctive (and frequent) q’-sound in the recording. On the other hand, many Mayan languages feature this voiceless uvular ejective stop … 2. I am not sure about lack of knowledge because Turkish or Hindi speakers for example use Arabic loans like lakin and ya’ani in their discourse all the time.
Now knowing that it’s Mayan, U heard </q/ and /Χ// . I think that with that, and the susceptibiility to Spanish oanwodrs, that it may be Mocho’'.
The language is Poqomam, a Mayan language spoken in parts of central Guatemala.
The recording comes from YouTube