Guess the Language, anyone?

[Vijay]

Notes to self ( ):

More: show

Okay, so that leaves Vaiphei (spoken in Manipur, Assam, Meghalaya, and Tripura), Biete (Aizawl district in Mizoram, Cachar dist. in Assam, Manipur, Jaintia Hills dist. in Meghalaya), Chiru (Tamenglong/Senapati/Churachandpur/Thoubal/Bishnupur dists. in Manipur, Cachar dist. in Assam, Nagaland), Gangte (Manipur, Meghalaya, Assam), Kom (Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Tripura), Purum (Manipur), Kharam (Manipur), Simte (Manipur), Aimol (Manipur, Assam), Saihriem (Cachar), Chothe (Manipur, Nagaland), Ralte (Aizawl/Lunglei/Chhimtuipui dists. Mizoram, Manipur, and Jampui Hills in Tripura).

Is it spoken exclusively in Manipur?

[opipik]

I've messed up, it is spoken in Burma.

[Vijay]

In which case that leaves us with:

More: show

Falam, Hrangkhol/Rangkhawl, Zo/Zomi/Yo/Zou/Yaw/Jo, Paite, Tedim, Thado, Siyin, Lamkang, Moyon

Is it Hrangkhol?

[opipik]

It's not Hrangkhol

[Vijay]

Siyin/Sizang/Sizaang/Shiyang/Thaute/Suantak? (Thuantak?)

[Nortaneous]

Zo?

[opipik]

Not Siyin and not Zo.

[Vijay]

Moyon?

[opipik]

Moyon?

Yes. (Why did you guess Moyon?)

[Vijay]

Because of all the Northern Kukish languages that were left at that point, it's the one I'm least familiar with. I've listened to songs in all of these languages before, but the only one I've ever heard in Moyon sounded vague enough that I couldn't possibly tell if the language of that text you posted was the same as the language in the song.

Now, how did you guess that my last text was in Swazi?

This one should be harder than the Swazi one (I'll reveal where I got it from after someone figures it out):

PƏSƆ NWATŨ NWA IDZƏ
Ku sɨ bɨn yǝnwa sɨ Fi Itwenɨng hɛ̃, Pǝgo be Nyitɨngku, wǝ nɨ kãlɨ o pe nyɔ nɨng hɛ̃ nɨ. Bisɨ hĩkang o sɨ bɨ e Idzǝ. Hĩkwã bɨ pǝ dzwang bɨ hywa bɨ hyɔ̃ wǝ.

Nwatũ myɛ̃lɨ a Dǝro a kĩlɨ vǝ Fi be nwa Idzǝ nɨ, e dɨ ywa sɨ wǝ be tswilɨ kǝ. E ifɨ ihyãnɨng tswe dǝbǝle vĩlɨ a nwa Idzǝ tang dǝro, be Fi kwǝ le lǝ lo.

[opipik]

Plateau? If not, Platoid

[Vijay]

Neither.

EDIT: Also, correction, I've never listened to a song in Hrangkhol before.

[kuroda]

Neither.

EDIT: Also, correction, I've never listened to a song in Hrangkhol before.

This suddenly made me wonder: would there be interest in a second 'Guess the Language' thread where we use audio samples, instead of texts? I'd be interested in giving it a try, but can't judge how dumb an idea it is really

[Vijay]

This suddenly made me wonder: would there be interest in a second 'Guess the Language' thread where we use audio samples, instead of texts? I'd be interested in giving it a try, but can't judge how dumb an idea it is really

That's exactly what the Omniglot blog does every week.

EDIT: Except of course that there's no turn-taking; it's always Simon Ager posting some recording and everybody else guessing which language it's in. Then within a few days, he reveals the answer. It's possible to send him a recording, though, and sometimes he uses that. Otherwise, by default, he just uses the Global Recordings Network. This is not necessarily a good idea because the GRN sometimes sucks at identifying languages correctly (I can think of three examples off the top of my head where they completely got the language wrong: the "Aranadan" recording is supposed to be a Dravidian language closely related to Malayalam, but it's clearly either a variety of Hindi or something closely related; the "Domari" recording is supposed to be an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Middle East but is really just Standard Persian; and the "Zargari" recording is supposed to be a variety of Romani spoken in Iran but is actually a language game that's also just using Standard Persian and just happens to also be called "Zargari").

[Nortaneous]

Chadic?

[Vijay]

Nope.

[kuroda]

Vijay, thanks for filling me in about Omniglot! I had no idea they even had a blog -- I guess I've been thinking (for some reason???) that the site was fossilized and dead for years. Am I right in thinking you're not, then, interested in trying to do it our/a better way, here?

[Vijay]

Well, I like that format, but they already do it over there (AFAIK. It's been a little while since I last checked, though, and years since I last participated), so I'm not really sure what the point of doing it here as well would be, that's all. (And of course, I still stand by my caveat about GRN).

And no problem!

EDIT: Btw, you might be thinking about the forum. They used to have a forum, but from what I've heard, that's been fossilized and dead for years. Admittedly, the blog is kind of obscure, too, but I think it's still active, and there's a small crowd of people who comment on his blog posts there (especially the language-guessing posts).

[opipik]

Bantoid?

[Vijay]

Oh, sorry! Nope. It's not Benue-Congo.

[opipik]

Atlantic-Congo?

[Vijay]

Yes.

[opipik]

Savannas?

[Vijay]

Yes, it is supposed to be part of the Savanna language group/family/whatever.

[opipik]

Former Adamawa-Eastern?