Can you identify the language, and do you know where it’s spoken?
7 thoughts on “Language quiz”
Sounds very much like chiShona or something very closely related like Manyika or iKalanga
If it’s not Swahili, it must be close to it, maybe Shikomor, Kinyarwanda…?
I dont’ think it’s Swahili. I’ve had another listen. Some words like “pambere”, “kuti” initially made me think Shona, but the typical whistling sounds weren’t there. I’ve ruled out Shona-like so Manyika, Kalanga, Ndau, Tonga and moved north, it sounds similar to Chewa but I don’t think it is. Is it Tumbuka?
It sounds very closely related to Swahili and also like Swahili doesn’t sound tonal. One of the main differences here is that it has [β], which shows up in Swahili as [w], for example in the human plural noun class ‘βa’ instead of Swahili ‘wa’. It must be a northern or eastern Tanzanian language very closely related to Swahili if not some phonologically conservative Swahili dialect I don’t know about or perhaps once did and have since forgotten.
Semi-random guess: Tshivenda
J Roberts got it – the answer is Tumbuka (chiTumbuka), a Bantu language spoken in parts of Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania by about 2 million people.
Sounds very much like chiShona or something very closely related like Manyika or iKalanga
If it’s not Swahili, it must be close to it, maybe Shikomor, Kinyarwanda…?
I dont’ think it’s Swahili. I’ve had another listen. Some words like “pambere”, “kuti” initially made me think Shona, but the typical whistling sounds weren’t there. I’ve ruled out Shona-like so Manyika, Kalanga, Ndau, Tonga and moved north, it sounds similar to Chewa but I don’t think it is. Is it Tumbuka?
It sounds very closely related to Swahili and also like Swahili doesn’t sound tonal. One of the main differences here is that it has [β], which shows up in Swahili as [w], for example in the human plural noun class ‘βa’ instead of Swahili ‘wa’. It must be a northern or eastern Tanzanian language very closely related to Swahili if not some phonologically conservative Swahili dialect I don’t know about or perhaps once did and have since forgotten.
Semi-random guess: Tshivenda
J Roberts got it – the answer is Tumbuka (chiTumbuka), a Bantu language spoken in parts of Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania by about 2 million people.
The recording comes from the Global Recordings Network.
thanks a lot for the link site “The recording comes from the Global Recordings Network”.