Guess the Language, anyone?

[jmcd]

Does the language have less than a hundred thousand speakers?

[KathTheDragon]

Is it an Indic language?

[Vijay]

Is this language extinct? It really reminds me of that Khotanese/Tumshuqese(?)/Saka text 2+3clusivity posted once. It really doesn't look like a transliteration of any living language from South or Southeast Asia that I know of.

[Nortaneous]

It's not Indic and it's extinct.

[kuroda]

It's not written in a Latin script, but the transliteration capitalizes initial letters after a full stop {.} and the name "Rajaguma"?

I thought I'd had my nose well-rubbed into extinct written Sino-Tibetan languages, but can't recognize this; and with Tai-Kadai and Austronesianasiatic having been eliminated, I say I'm well stumped.

(Edited for aphasia)

[jmcd]

Was it spoken in Anatolia?

[gufferdk]

So searching the internet for things that might make sense in this case i stumbled upon the Rajaguma inscriptions, better known as the Myazedi inscription, and one of the 4 languages of the inscription only one is extinct, so i'm going to go ahed and guess that it's Pyu, also becuase the small text i was able to find looks similar enough to the sample text.

[kuroda]

That would have been my guess, but the transliteration doesn't look like anything I've seen before for [Pyu], either on the epigraphic or the linguistic side.

[Edit: Again editing my incoherence.]

[Nortaneous]

I knew "Rajaguma" would give it away, it's Pyu

kuroda: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/piperm ... chment.pdf

[kuroda]

Wow, did I ever screw that one up. Really good puzzle, Nortaneous! And thank you for the link; I'm enjoying reading it, no matter how much it reminds me I'm old and out of touch now

[Edit: I did not pick up on the fact that the text sample was a transliteration of a language written in another script, but assumed that it was either a linguistic or practical (Latin) orthography of a living language (because that's what this thread is mostly about); and learning it was a dead language, I was hung up on thinking it used conventional transcription of whatever language it was.]

[gufferdk]

Here is a new sample text. I have no idea about how difficult this is going to be. This is a coherent text, not a collection of example sentences.

Kialhalhamuaku n kana tuasikame.
Maacu a tuasikamena ia, muasakiamana umaala kana tapaena.
Mulalengese tapaena mangetelhe paari.
Tualheisa usua aari a aalicu kana kumulici tumakirengerenge.
Tumakirengerenge maaci manganicuna ia aalicu kana mariungengece.
Maiengengece.
Aalicu maigengece.
Maaci lhipaiengengecacuna ia, aalicu tusikame.
Maaci tusikame ia tualheisa meemea tumalhenge valangevange.
Tusikame.
Maaci ka kiariari a ucani ka uka'amana ka kiariari lhipu'a na kana sikame ia, maaruami a tapaena meemea tusikame.
Aunaana ka kana kiariari ka uka'amana ka lhipu'a na sikame.

[opipik]

Saaroa.

[gufferdk]

Saaroa.

Correct. It is an excerpt from a text about how to make a mat from plants. As said i had no idea about how hard it would be but I would have expected it to at least take a few guesses

[opipik]

Dortje mor yaw ti thas nan. Thas nam ma ktei, desio tanoha kotw ma ta. Taknam ma ktei, desio tabren.

[kuroda]

Wait, please, wait. What is Saaroa, and how did you spot it?

[opipik]

Wait, please, wait. What is Saaroa, and how did you spot it?

Here, have a grammar.

[kuroda]

Thank you, I do appreciate that link.

It answers neither of the questions I asked.

[----]

The syllable structure, word structure, and ostensible phones present in the language are a dead giveaway that it's Tsouic. But Tsou itself has lots of /o/ so it's a tossup between Saaroa and Kanakanabu (which are extremely similar), but I'd be surprised if anyone managed to find a text of appropriate length in the latter.

It's pretty simple

[Vijay]

Dortje mor yaw ti thas nan. Thas nam ma ktei, desio tanoha kotw ma ta. Taknam ma ktei, desio tabren.

Is this some kind of Bodish language? Some of the words and syllable structures remind me of Tibetan in Wylie transliteration, plus the fact that there are lots of one-syllable words is reminiscent of Sino-Tibetan languages in general, and I know there have been a bunch of sound changes in Lhasa Tibetan that never took place in other varieties.

[opipik]

Dortje mor yaw ti thas nan. Thas nam ma ktei, desio tanoha kotw ma ta. Taknam ma ktei, desio tabren.

Is this some kind of Bodish language? Some of the words and syllable structures remind me of Tibetan in Wylie transliteration, plus the fact that there are lots of one-syllable words is reminiscent of Sino-Tibetan languages in general, and I know there have been a bunch of sound changes in Lhasa Tibetan that never took place in other varieties.

Nope.

[Vijay]

Is this some other language from PNG again?

[opipik]

Is this some other language from PNG again?

Nope.

[jmcd]

It has unusual consonant clusters like initial kt and final tw. I'd guess Arrernte as it contains labialised coronal plosives and doesn't write initial schwa.

[Frislander]

It has unusual consonant clusters like initial kt and final tw. I'd guess Arrernte as it contains labialised coronal plosives and doesn't write initial schwa.

Arrernte however is only written with two vowels a lacks s (as do all Australian languages bar Kala Lagaw Ya).

[opipik]

It has unusual consonant clusters like initial kt and final tw. I'd guess Arrernte as it contains labialised coronal plosives and doesn't write initial schwa.

Nope.