Language quiz

Here’s a recording in a mystery language.


This entry was posted in Language, Quiz questions.

10 Responses to Language quiz

  1. Daniel says:

    What I noticed is what seems to be an English accent (and the English phrase “of course”), plus many references to Australia. So I suppose it’s a native Australian language spoken by a non-native speaker.

  2. AlexM says:

    Maltese ?

  3. lukas says:

    Definitely Maltese. English and Italian loanwords on an Arabic substrate (ħ is all over the place, even if you don’t know Arabic).

  4. William Athol says:


  5. wilma ramirez says:

    my guess .- maori

  6. Christopher Miller says:

    Maltese, abso-defi-lutely, but spoken with a strong second-language accent. My guess: a second-generation Australian or at least someone who grew up speaking Australian English as her first or usual language and Maltese as a subordinate family language. I could understand about half of it, so close it is in sound to Lebanese. Words like kien ‘was’, li ‘who/that’, magħhom ‘with them’, is-sana l-oħra ‘the other (second?) year’, qalu(lu) [ʔalu(lu)] ‘they said (to him)’ and of course Inglis, Malti and Għawdex ['awdeʃ]: ‘English, Maltese, Gozo Island’. Then there are the Italian or Sicilian loans familja and kompletament. She’s telling a story about a (her?) family going to the High Commission of (ta’) “l-Awstralija” where someone before they came (ġu [ʤu]) to Australia. Not sure, but it sounds toward the middle like she’s talking about a “boyfriend Malti li qalulu (who they spoke to) bl-Inglis (in English), of course”.

  7. peter j. franke says:

    My first thought was ‘Ivrieth with English accent. But after reading the comments of Alex, Lucas and Christopher they confinced me about Maltese.

  8. formiko says:

    It sounded strangely like a weird Romance language with all the words ending in vowels, but after the comments, I can see that it could be Maltese, but my first guess was an aboriginal language spoken by a non-native, but even that was a stretch because I heard too many gutturals to be Pomo-Nyungan

  9. prase says:

    I have guessed Maltese, too.

  10. Simon says:

    The language is Maltese (Malti) which is spoken in mainly in Malta.

    The recording comes from SBS Radio (Australia).