Language quiz

By Simon

Here’s a recording of someone talking in an obscure language. Can you work out which language it is?

This language is spoken on one of the groups of islands in the Pacific Ocean.

8 thoughts on “Language quiz”

  2. I haven’t the foggiest. Might as well be Martian.

    But you and your readers might enjoy this video about the plight of Danish on YouTube. It’s the slightest bit delightful.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk

    My dad just forwarded it to me from South Africa. He found out about it from a friend in Hong Kong. Now, the three of us speak five languages. And we all asked the same question: What are those subtitles written in?

    🙂

  4. Steve, the subtitles are in Norwegian. The video was produced by the Norwegian TV channel NRK. This makes it extra funny, because Danish and Norwegian are very similar, and the Norwegians should be able to understand Danish, but still to them Danish often sounds like unintelligible babbling, because Danish isn’t pronouced very clearly.

    About the quiz: I have absolutely no clue.

  5. I would be better off, if the acoustic quality of the recording wasn’t that lousy.
    So, the only characteristic I coud detect was the strong stress on the last syllable of each sentence. That wouldn’t qualify the language to be a member of the Polynesian family, would it?
    And, as the United States were mentioned, I wonder if the language is spoken on islands that are still part of the USA – let’s say: Guam and the language could be Chamorro?

  6. Marshallese, one of the official languages of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. (Taiwan was also mentioned.) At least that’s my guess… My other choice would’ve been iKiribati, though Chamorro is a good guess, too.

    d.m.f.

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