My apologies for using the wrong flag of Catalonia. That's the one I found when I searched for the flag of Catalonia, and I had seen it in photos of Barcelona so I thought it was the official flag, not an independence flag. As subscribers probably know, I never do anything with political intention.
Nishank Rangarajan Do one on my favorite, Kannada. I am always telling my Tamil wife that I'm an "amateur Kannadiga", like my son and I are "amateur astronomers".
Paul, I think you'll find interesting my experience with Catalan. I'm Italian, from Lombardy. My grandma spoke me almost exclusively in lombard language. I married a woman from Barcelona and I started learning Spanish. I learnt it easily but Catalan came just without any effort. It was like having it already inside.To me, Catalan is like another Lombard language and it has actually taken the place of Lombard in my head. Now, when I try to speak Lombard, Catalan comes out instead. When I speak Spanish in Catalonia, they detect I'm Italian. When I speak Catalan, no one realizes I'm foreigner and everybody is so surprised. And one last anecdote: when I told my father how much Catalan was close to Lombard, he told me that years before, people from a Catalan company had come to work in his company in Milan. When they tried to communicate Spanish with Italian, conversation came out not so smooth but then they switched to Catalan with Lombard and they got along much better. So, according to my experience, Catalan is part of a linguistic region that stretches from the Eastern shores of Spain to South France (langue d'oc) up to Northwestern Italy.
Tens tota la raó :) El Català, l'occità i el Llombard està demostrat que son part del sub grup de llengües gallo-romaniques. D'aqui ve la seva similitud.
In my opinion this was the easiest video of the "Mystery Languages" saga (i guessed 3/3). I´m a native Spanish and Hebrew speaker and English as learned language. Continue making your videos, they are really good! I would like to know more about Amharic...
The last one is my native tongue! I started laughing when I heard that. 😅 The audio was a news audio clip talking about a catastrophe that happened due to fireworks.
1.) Catalan I speak Spanish and French and as soon as I saw the “si us plau,” I called it 2.) I thought it was Hebrew because of the writing but apparently it was related! Glad to have learned about this language 3.) Tamil I once went to Singapore for a conference and remembered that Tamil was one of their 4 official languages due to the vast population of South Indian descendants 💕
1 I guessed portuguese because sounds so latin but not french, spanish or rumanian 2 I guessed it correctly because i searched semitic languages a few years ago 3 I shouted 'tamil' in my room and my flatmate came to ask 'are you OK'
no man, portuguease nasalizates all the vowels begore N and M. But nice guess, as a portuguese speaker, the pronouncing is closer to portuguese than Spanish
Saller Raczmanikow you're right on that. I knew it wasn't Portuguese because there were no nasalized valves. I figured it was some Ibero-Romance language, probably Catalan but maybe Asturian. Seeing the writing helped.
This is a great series, you should definitely keep it up. Of all the series like this one, yours is the clearest and most concise. You pack a lot of sound information into a small time. I've learned a lot.
Just a note, the two Tamil samples were in two different registers: the first is high / literary Tamil, and in both syntax and vocabulary very different from the simpler low / casual register. I am a native speaker of the casual register but I have a very hard time with the literary.
I am from Tamil Nadu in South India, Tamil is my mother tongue and I am very pleased to hear it being played in the "guess the mystery language series". Overall I love your "guess the mystery language series" Paul, very interesting to make guesses on the identity of the languages being played from even from a neutral language learner's perspective.
1. I guessed Catalan easily. I just spent 3 years in Barcelona and hearing Catalan again made me smile, so thank you for bringing back all those good memories! 2. This one I really didn't know. When I saw the weird script I thought it looked like Georgian or Armenian, so I was way off. 3. I knew right away it sounded Indian. I guess because I'm British and we have a lot of Indian people here. When I saw the script it didn't look like a northern Indian one so I guessed it was some kind of Dravidian language, so I was actually right on this one too!
Hey Paul! i've watched all 3 of your guess language videos, and i got 1 correct, which is the last language "Tamil"! I'm from Malaysia, I heard and learned a little of this language since i was small. and i could tell straight away without guessing!
Mine were: 1. Some sort of Spanish Creole (Incorrect) 2. Georgian (Incorrect) 3. Tamil (Correct) I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought that that looked like Georgian.
1. was definitely Catalan. At first I thought it to be Portuguese but then I heard the word "eixample" or something like that which is a borough of Barcelona so that gave it away. 2. I had no idea at the beginning. First it sounded lika a Caucasian language then it sounded Arabic but as soon as it came to the reading examples I knew from the script that it was Amharic. 3. I knew it was an Indian language but was torn between Kannada, Telugu and Tamil. Unfortunately I can't differenciate them but the script gave it away too because the first two are written in a more circular way as far as I can remember.
Nightey Pretty much the same with the sequence of guesses. I too thought that the first one was Portuguese at first. And also guessed the second one to be a Caucasian language initially. I'm Indian so I could guess Tamil but only after looking at the script.
Harini Marchadi I could tell it was A Dravidian language because some of my family from India speaks Malayalam when they don't want anyone to understand them
Kannada and Telugu utilize nearly the same alphabet, which is based on the Brahmi script once used for Sanskrit, much as Devanagri was used for Sanskrit. Telugu and Kannada have a slightl stylistic difference in the base of the letter for 'v'/'w' and that element is used in some other letters such as "m". The letter for 'kh' is fairly different between the two, lookin like a capital Latin 'S', whereas the Kannada 'kh' is much more curly. The difference in 'v' I think is mainly style, whereas the 'kh' is a bigger difference. Maybe a Kannadiga or Telugu could weigh in on that.
Thank God at least I have been able to guess one language of your three videos. And that is the last one of third video and that is Tamil. I am indian but from northern side. But I can recognise to some extent while hearing our major four south Indian language. The sample given by you lead me to either Malayalam or Tamil and afterwards to Tamil as it doesn't contain even a single word from Sanskrit but Malayalam contains. And the very presence of RUMBA helped me in pointing exactly as Tamil. Love your videos. Thanks a lot for making such good ones.
1) Catalan 2) Georgian (because it had Arabic influences and the weird script) 3) Tamil (I speak Tamil, spoken in Kerala, India which is the closest language to Tamil)
1/ I first thought of Galician as it mixes Spanish and Portuguese, but I guessed Catalan when I saw the written samples. 2/ I would have said Somalian or Ethiopian as I used to hear it a lot with people from this country. (I live in Calais). It made me think to Arabic when I heard it, but the written samples helped me again. 3/ The audio sample got me lost! I knew it was from Asia though. Then I would've said a Thai-Laotian-related language but I didn't know which exactly. Thanks for this video!
1. Galician, I knew it was an Ibero-Romance language, but wasn't Spanish or Portuguese 2. Amharic, the writing system gives it away. 3. Tamil, I have a Tamil friend who sometimes speaks a bit of it, and the mystery language sounded like Tamil.
2/3 this time: 1- Sounds close to Spanish, I knew it was "the other big language" from Spain then when I saw it written, it reminded me of the backboards in Ibiza... where they speak Catalan! 2- Sounds a little bit like Arabic to my ears but very different from what I hear when Moroccan or Algerian people speak... I had no guessing until I saw it written and I was instantly like "this is the ethiopian language!!!" because I discovered several ethiopian musicians on cassettes last year and saw these beautiful and intriguing writings :-) 3- Sounds like an asian language, probably close to India (because a way to pronounce the letter "d" like when 1st generation imigrants from India or Pakistan speak English. Love this accent, by the way!) But I spoted countries more like Nepal ou Bhoutan not Sri Lanka. You got me on that one! ;-D
1. Portuguese(because it is very similar with spanish, but has more "sh" sounds 2. Amharic(Ethiopean). At first i thoght arabic, but after you showed me the letters, i recognized amharic. It has some similar letters with hebrew and russian 3. Bengali... sounded very similar
Bengali sounds very different from Tamil to me. Bengali has a lot of use of 'o' and 'sh' while Tamil has a lot of use of retroflex 't' and 'd', and 'am'.
Dear Paul. I like a lot your videos which I find very interesting and funny. I am Italian and since you like to study languages I would like to let you know that you read the word "scrivere" with a wrong pronunciation. Flexion is very important in my language and the word "scrivere" has the accent on the first syllable, not on the second one like you pronounced it, which sounds wrong to me. I hope this absolutely friendly comment is useful for your own interest and I encourage you to make a video dedicated to Italian with the same passion and skill you had for your previous videos.
How come English doesn't seem to prefer an anglicised "scrībere" for writing, but uses "to write" more frequently? "Scrib" or something along those lines exists in every language I speak as a non-native speaker: En: to scribe (actually more prominent as "describe") De: schreiben Nl: schrijven
My guesses: 1) Catalan 2) Ethiopian...I guess that's not a language, but I have seen the alphabet around Ethiopian restaurants 3) I guessed a language spoken in Kerala (I forgot the language was called Malayalam) but Tamil is right next door! Fantastic video concept 🤙🤙
I was going to answer the same thing but then the written examples were more Eastern Catalan, so I guessed he was making no distinction between the dialects :)
I guessed the first one, because it is my native language. By the way you used the pro-independence flag (la estelada) instead of the official flag (la senyera)
I got all three. For the first two I needed the written form. For the third I got a little lucky. Just from listening, I thought the first was spanish, but then I saw that x is pronounced /ʃ/ and also some big similarities with french. When I was listening to the second, it seemed similar to arabic and hebrew, but not quite so my first thought was maltese (as I thought I heard some latin words). Once I saw the writing, it was clear. The third one was obviously an indian language (because of the retroflex consonants). Since I didn't identify indo-european cognates and it didn't sound like hindi, it had to be a dravidian language. It could have been either Tamil or Telugu, but I got lucky.
Hi @Langfocus.. i`m from Peru and I speak spanish, english, portuguese (Brazil) and catalan. I'm glad you put the catalan language in the first audio because I'm learning it and it's very cool that you did remember it because it's not very known. Please, make a video explaining the catalan language because I found it very interesting and it's a mix of italian, french, spanish, english and portuguese. Thanks!
1. Spanish because it sounded spanish. 2. No idea but sounded like arabic but weird script maybe some african language. 3. Tamil. Have heard and seen the script before.
hello! could you please make more in depth videos of less popular languages like catalan or tamil? although they aren't spoken a lot they do have huge historical and cultural backgrounds. keep it up by the way, i love your vids!
It seems like you're not a Tamil person, so can you tell me why you tell so? It's interesting to see a possible European show this much interest in this distant language.
Just so you know, the audio for the second language doesn't work on mobiles because one of the audio tracks is inverted (left or right, doesn't matter which). A phone tries to combine both tracks to play through a mono speaker, but the tracks just cancel each other out. To fix this issue, either invert one of the tracks, or just duplicate the left to the right (or vice versa).
Yes, thanks. I’m aware of that issue and have been careful of it since this video. I decided not to reupload this video since it’s not such a major one, and it doesn’t effect the other parts of the video.
my guesses: 1) Spanish all thanks to emphasise on rrrr. 2) Arabic due to the tone/sound. 3) Tamil because I am an Indian Da!! But I do not understand it and I also recognized the script though I cannot read it.
Hi, everyone! I hope you like the video. If you're learning a new language, try the world-famous *Pimsleur method* in its new-and-improved subscription format: ► imp.i271380.net/langfocus ► *Free trial - Use my link to gain access* (Disclosure: The above link is an affiliate link, so Langfocus gets a small referral fee - at no extra cost to you)
First, I thought that it was the Romanian language. After reading the script, it didn't seem like it though so I stayed neutral and really didn't have any idea of what it was. For the second one, it didn't sound very similar to any language I know, but after reading the script, I immediately guessed it was Amharic as I don't think any other language uses the script. For the third one, it didn't sound like any language I've heard of either, but I did know that the script pretty much guaranteed it was a south asian language, though I didn't know which one because I don't quite know the script differences between them.
1. That's definitely catalan. I'm spanish so I can recognise it easily. Also be careful, you have used the separatist flag for ilustrating the language. That would get some people mad. 2. That sounds between slavic and arabic. I would say persian or some language of the Caucasus. 3. Well, that is something from Central Asia. Maybe kazakh?
1) I don't know: it's romance but I'm not sure what 2) it's a bit like Hebrew and Arabic, but I don't know what 3) Christ, that's fast! some Indian language due to the script
1-catalan 2-amhari, when I heard the Salaam and semitic phonemes, and the writing confirmed it. 3-Some Indian language. When I saw the writing I knew it was dravidian though.
1. Catalan. I guessed it because it sounded very similar to spanish without being completely spanish haha 2. At first I thought of a Semitic languages (which Amharic actually is) but then I hesitated and even thought of Armenian.. So yeah.. 3. I guessed it was a language from India mostly based on the pronunciation of the fourth sample I think.. It had that Indian style even though it's not hindi and indo-european
1. Knew it wasn't Spanish, knew it was some smaller spoken Romance Language 2. Knew Amharic only from writing, but recognized Semitic from listening 3. Guessed Burmese, no clue
1. Spanishy Italian, so, maybe Catalan? I was right! 2. The writing system betrayed Amharic. The spoken example only told me that's it's a language of a Muslim nation (salaam). 3. So, it's an Indian language, but not Hindi or Urdu. I'll vote Sinhalese. Oh, it's Tamil. I was somewhat close, at least geographically.
WhiteScorpio2 cool tip about differentiating Sinhalese, the script has very very few straight lines because it was originally pressed onto leaves, and curled lines would not cause the leaves to split
1. Hearing: i hear trilled r, sounds like romance but doesn’t sound like the straight up ones Saw script: Corsican? Catalan? Saw answer: yaaaaay 2. Hearing: salam? Muslim influenced? Sounds southeast asian Saw script: aaaaa i see script. Amharic Saw answer: yaaaaay 3. Hearing: ok retroflex consonants, i think Indian subcontinent Saw script: Bengali? Assam? Saw answer: oooooo ok… interesting. I thought it had a unique abugida not similar to the ones i saw Thanks for the cool videos!!!
1.- As a Spaniard who watches the news, I immediately identified it as Catalan. 2.- I had no clue from any of the samples, even being capable of identifying Hebrew and (probably) Arabic from spoken samples. 3.- I only dared to guess it was a language from India from the written sample.
1) I guessed a language similar to Spanish and thought there was a French influence too. 2) No idea. I even heard Amharic before but that didn't help. 3) Again, no idea. All 3 videos were fascinating! Thanks!
1- I'll say Catalan because that sounds close to Portuguese and Catalan is essentially a mix of old Portuguese and Spanish. 2- This one sounds Arabic but with less "R" sounds so I'll say Persian 3-Alright, this sounds Asian so I'll say some kind of Indian language.
There are actually a lot of sounds in Catalan that are closer to Portuguese than to Castilian, since the latter is actually less conservative when compared to its medieval version. Other Iberian languages didn't have such a significant sound change. If you search for Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish), you'll also note that it sounds more like Portuguese than Castilian, eventhough the language is actually derived from the last one.
OohSugarCrumbs as a Galician national I can tell you no one said that Catalan couldn't sound like Portuguese, well, It can sound whatever your ears want, but Catalan will never be (as the main comment says) a mixture between Portuguese and Spanish, because it's not.
My guesses were: 1. Portuguese (close but incorrect) 2. Arabic (sounds like but incorrect) 3. Tamil (correct) I have friends who are from India so I got the third one correct but I don't know the language.
I guessed Catalan because I remembered how it was mixed Spanish / French, I never heard of Amharic before, guessed Arameic, Tamil was a complete mystery for me :) thanks for these challenges, I look forward to guessing more Mystery Languages! :)
Catalan. It's like the French gave the Spanish their writing system. Isn't this that Ethiopian language? I can't remember its name, but the writing looks like that language's Abugida. It looks like Syriac? It looks like it has an aleph at the end of one of the words. It's distinctive because it looks like a snake.
1. Portuguese. Because it sounded like spanish, but it wasn't. 2. Amharic. I understood it was semitic from the listening part, then the script gave me the final clue. 3. Bengali. I have to admit, I just picked a random Indian language that wasn't urdu or hindi. By the way, I didn't know that Tamil and Bengali have different writing systems.
Hi Paul! The spoken samples of the first language are not exactly catalan but valencian ( catalan dialect spoken in Valencia area, although the consideration as dialect or language has political influences ). Grammar and vocabulary are 95% like catalan ( they say "per favor" and not "si us plau" ) and the pronunciation is like a mix between catalan and spanish ( like speaking catalan with spanish accent ), so it's a bit easier to understand to spanish speakers Keep up the good work!
The word ABUGIDA was taken from the Ethiopian Ge'ez literary books and the Amharic/Ge'ez character chart is called Abugida through its history of 2000 years.
My apologies for using the wrong flag of Catalonia. That's the one I found when I searched for the flag of Catalonia, and I had seen it in photos of Barcelona so I thought it was the official flag, not an independence flag.
As subscribers probably know, I never do anything with political intention.
Й I guessed 1 and 2 correctly. A weird writing system for language 3 and I guessed ******* (not revealing any language names because ŠPOILERS)
I was able to see this comment so it gave that one away! :(
Langfocus you should make a video on Dardic languages (Kashmiri, Chitrali, Khowar, Pashayi, Shina, Domaaki) or on Dravidian languages
Nishank Rangarajan
Do one on my favorite, Kannada. I am always telling my Tamil wife that I'm an "amateur Kannadiga", like my son and I are "amateur astronomers".
Langfocus can you please do a redo for the Arabic language I'm from Egypt myself
Paul, I think you'll find interesting my experience with Catalan. I'm Italian, from Lombardy. My grandma spoke me almost exclusively in lombard language. I married a woman from Barcelona and I started learning Spanish. I learnt it easily but Catalan came just without any effort. It was like having it already inside.To me, Catalan is like another Lombard language and it has actually taken the place of Lombard in my head. Now, when I try to speak Lombard, Catalan comes out instead. When I speak Spanish in Catalonia, they detect I'm Italian. When I speak Catalan, no one realizes I'm foreigner and everybody is so surprised. And one last anecdote: when I told my father how much Catalan was close to Lombard, he told me that years before, people from a Catalan company had come to work in his company in Milan. When they tried to communicate Spanish with Italian, conversation came out not so smooth but then they switched to Catalan with Lombard and they got along much better. So, according to my experience, Catalan is part of a linguistic region that stretches from the Eastern shores of Spain to South France (langue d'oc) up to Northwestern Italy.
Tens tota la raó :) El Català, l'occità i el Llombard està demostrat que son part del sub grup de llengües gallo-romaniques. D'aqui ve la seva similitud.
Tütt i volt che sent al catalano me vegn in ment al dialett dal mæ papà (Val Ciavéna). :)
I thought the second language was sign language because I was watching on my smartphone and no sound came out of the speakers xD
Same! Very odd.
It's kind of explained in the description
Yes no sound came...
Four years later, I guess smartphones have gotten better. I can hear it fine.
Christian Aliferis No they haven't and I can still hear nada
In my opinion this was the easiest video of the "Mystery Languages" saga (i guessed 3/3). I´m a native Spanish and Hebrew speaker and English as learned language. Continue making your videos, they are really good! I would like to know more about Amharic...
The last one is my native tongue! I started laughing when I heard that. 😅 The audio was a news audio clip talking about a catastrophe that happened due to fireworks.
Mine was the first language, so I laughed too! 🤣
Edit: The audio talked about a race.
@@literato169 Aah, Catalan! I heard it and was like, I kinda understand this, but not completely. I know Spanish, so it sounded very familiar
1.) Catalan
I speak Spanish and French and as soon as I saw the “si us plau,” I called it
2.) I thought it was Hebrew because of the writing but apparently it was related! Glad to have learned about this language
3.) Tamil
I once went to Singapore for a conference and remembered that Tamil was one of their 4 official languages due to the vast population of South Indian descendants 💕
1 I guessed portuguese because sounds so latin but not french, spanish or rumanian
2 I guessed it correctly because i searched semitic languages a few years ago
3 I shouted 'tamil' in my room and my flatmate came to ask 'are you OK'
You mean semitic languages because sami is similar to finnish
thank you for your comment ahurachek
Ahuratchek I think the same lol
no man, portuguease nasalizates all the vowels begore N and M. But nice guess, as a portuguese speaker, the pronouncing is closer to portuguese than Spanish
Saller Raczmanikow you're right on that. I knew it wasn't Portuguese because there were no nasalized valves. I figured it was some Ibero-Romance language, probably Catalan but maybe Asturian. Seeing the writing helped.
my guess:
1. Jeopardy
2. Jeopardy
3. Jeopardy
This is a great series, you should definitely keep it up. Of all the series like this one, yours is the clearest and most concise. You pack a lot of sound information into a small time. I've learned a lot.
Just a note, the two Tamil samples were in two different registers: the first is high / literary Tamil, and in both syntax and vocabulary very different from the simpler low / casual register. I am a native speaker of the casual register but I have a very hard time with the literary.
Similar enough tbh . I speak casual register and learn/read high register on a daily basis
They feel like two separate languages to me lol and I've been speaking casual tamil for decades
I am from Tamil Nadu in South India, Tamil is my mother tongue and I am very pleased to hear it being played in the "guess the mystery language series". Overall I love your "guess the mystery language series" Paul, very interesting to make guesses on the identity of the languages being played from even from a neutral language learner's perspective.
Paul, these are my favourite videos! I hope you will make more of these. They really make you stop and think!
1. I guessed Catalan easily. I just spent 3 years in Barcelona and hearing Catalan again made me smile, so thank you for bringing back all those good memories!
2. This one I really didn't know. When I saw the weird script I thought it looked like Georgian or Armenian, so I was way off.
3. I knew right away it sounded Indian. I guess because I'm British and we have a lot of Indian people here. When I saw the script it didn't look like a northern Indian one so I guessed it was some kind of Dravidian language, so I was actually right on this one too!
A friend of mine presented your channel and I am very grateful to this. Your channel is intelligent and informative. Thank you!!
+Jane Freguglia It's my pleasure! I'm glad you're here. Say thanks to your friend for me!
Hey Paul!
i've watched all 3 of your guess language videos, and i got 1 correct, which is the last language "Tamil"!
I'm from Malaysia, I heard and learned a little of this language since i was small.
and i could tell straight away without guessing!
Am I the only one who couldn't hear the Amharic audio?
trafo60 no I couldn't either
trafo60 Nope. I didn't hear it either until the written sentences appeared.
couldnt hear it either
No, I also didn't hear any sound of Amharic. Only with the written sentences it came back.
I heard it.
Speaking of Tamil, you should do a video on Dravidian languages.
Yeah
Arun sharma ya
Yes, interesting suggestion.
The third is Tamil! before you said it, My husband's language so I hear it a lot. I am slowly picking it up.
1- Romanian or Catalan. Leaning more towards Romanian.
2- Amharic
3- Some Dravidian language. Tamil? Telugu?
Tamil is one of the ancient language till now in spoken. Paul must make a separate video about Tamil.
My guesses were
1. Romanian (wrong: it was Catalan)
2. Georgian (wrong: it was Amharic)
3. Tamil (correct!)
Lool that script kinda looked Georgian hey?
im tamil from srilanka
Mine were:
1. Some sort of Spanish Creole (Incorrect)
2. Georgian (Incorrect)
3. Tamil (Correct)
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought that that looked like Georgian.
It kind of gave it away when I saw the written form because I can recognise pretty much most languages with different scripts.
That`s so funny, because I just guessed Catalan initially in Romanian in the last video.. :0
1. was definitely Catalan. At first I thought it to be Portuguese but then I heard the word "eixample" or something like that which is a borough of Barcelona so that gave it away.
2. I had no idea at the beginning. First it sounded lika a Caucasian language then it sounded Arabic but as soon as it came to the reading examples I knew from the script that it was Amharic.
3. I knew it was an Indian language but was torn between Kannada, Telugu and Tamil. Unfortunately I can't differenciate them but the script gave it away too because the first two are written in a more circular way as far as I can remember.
Nightey Pretty much the same with the sequence of guesses. I too thought that the first one was Portuguese at first. And also guessed the second one to be a Caucasian language initially.
I'm Indian so I could guess Tamil but only after looking at the script.
Nightey I can tell between the languages bc my parents speak Kannada and Tamil but in different situations
"ix" produces a "sh" sound so Eixample is pronounced "uh-SHAM-pluh"
Harini Marchadi I could tell it was A Dravidian language because some of my family from India speaks Malayalam when they don't want anyone to understand them
Kannada and Telugu utilize nearly the same alphabet, which is based on the Brahmi script once used for Sanskrit, much as Devanagri was used for Sanskrit. Telugu and Kannada have a slightl stylistic difference in the base of the letter for 'v'/'w' and that element is used in some other letters such as "m". The letter for 'kh' is fairly different between the two, lookin like a capital Latin 'S', whereas the Kannada 'kh' is much more curly. The difference in 'v' I think is mainly style, whereas the 'kh' is a bigger difference. Maybe a Kannadiga or Telugu could weigh in on that.
The third one is my native language, yes tamil. Second one I can pick out Hebrew sounding words. Thanks very interesting.
Tamil is so cool.
Me too
The second one is Amharic, because it is a semitic language it will have some Hebrew sounding words.
It is that famous Sun Tv anchor.
Love this series! More please? :)
Thank God at least I have been able to guess one language of your three videos. And that is the last one of third video and that is Tamil. I am indian but from northern side. But I can recognise to some extent while hearing our major four south Indian language. The sample given by you lead me to either Malayalam or Tamil and afterwards to Tamil as it doesn't contain even a single word from Sanskrit but Malayalam contains. And the very presence of RUMBA helped me in pointing exactly as Tamil. Love your videos. Thanks a lot for making such good ones.
1) Catalan
2) Georgian (because it had Arabic influences and the weird script)
3) Tamil (I speak Tamil, spoken in Kerala, India which is the closest language to Tamil)
I think you wanted to write Malayalam in the brackets.
Nobody really knows where Georgian scripts coming from, and it's definitely not Arabic. It's modeled on Greek. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_scripts
1. The baby of French and Spanish... (close enough)
2. Arabic? (kind of lol no)
3. India! (not a language but at least I got the country...)
xD
hahaha because i live in malaysia, i know the third language was tamil.....
Same here! XD
manifestasisanubari which part are you from?
manifestasisanubari shah alam, selangor
Polyglot?
manifestasisanubari what?
I love the series of Mystery Languages and I am very eager to see such videos. Please keep uploading. Thanks a lot.
I realized the second is related with Hebrew or Arabic, because the first word is "selam", sounds like "salam" in Arabic or "shalom" in Hebrew.
I'm so glad you included Tamil in your language video because I speak Tamil too :)
The second language sounds very pleasing...
I knew Amharic by the writing system because I had a babysitter from Ethiopia, and with the transliteration I saw cognates with Hebrew!
Amharic script looks so cool. I would even hang it on my wall as artwork.
1/ I first thought of Galician as it mixes Spanish and Portuguese, but I guessed Catalan when I saw the written samples.
2/ I would have said Somalian or Ethiopian as I used to hear it a lot with people from this country. (I live in Calais). It made me think to Arabic when I heard it, but the written samples helped me again.
3/ The audio sample got me lost! I knew it was from Asia though. Then I would've said a Thai-Laotian-related language but I didn't know which exactly.
Thanks for this video!
1. Galician, I knew it was an Ibero-Romance language, but wasn't Spanish or Portuguese
2. Amharic, the writing system gives it away.
3. Tamil, I have a Tamil friend who sometimes speaks a bit of it, and the mystery language sounded like Tamil.
Catalan is not a Ibero-romance language is a Occitano-romance
Amharic was really interesting to hear, Ithought at first it sounded Greek-ish and then it transitioned to Arabic-ish. Languages are cool.
I knew the third one is Tamil because I could understand it :P
That always helps! :)
I think that's called cheating. ;-)
I only knew it was Tamil from the text it showed
Swegimus Zeffimus Me too.
Me too
I love how for ever single one I've guessed within 1 country of where it's spoken, but every single one I've gotten wrong.
2/3 this time:
1- Sounds close to Spanish, I knew it was "the other big language" from Spain then when I saw it written, it reminded me of the backboards in Ibiza... where they speak Catalan!
2- Sounds a little bit like Arabic to my ears but very different from what I hear when Moroccan or Algerian people speak... I had no guessing until I saw it written and I was instantly like "this is the ethiopian language!!!" because I discovered several ethiopian musicians on cassettes last year and saw these beautiful and intriguing writings :-)
3- Sounds like an asian language, probably close to India (because a way to pronounce the letter "d" like when 1st generation imigrants from India or Pakistan speak English. Love this accent, by the way!)
But I spoted countries more like Nepal ou Bhoutan not Sri Lanka. You got me on that one! ;-D
1-Catalan(Valencian dialect)
2-Malasian
3-Hindi
1. Portuguese(because it is very similar with spanish, but has more "sh" sounds
2. Amharic(Ethiopean). At first i thoght arabic, but after you showed me the letters, i recognized amharic. It has some similar letters with hebrew and russian
3. Bengali... sounded very similar
Bengali sounds very different from Tamil to me. Bengali has a lot of use of 'o' and 'sh' while Tamil has a lot of use of retroflex 't' and 'd', and 'am'.
Exact same for me for 2 and 3, but I got Català right because I'm Brazilian and can speak spanish and french.
Dear Paul. I like a lot your videos which I find very interesting and funny. I am Italian and since you like to study languages I would like to let you know that you read the word "scrivere" with a wrong pronunciation. Flexion is very important in my language and the word "scrivere" has the accent on the first syllable, not on the second one like you pronounced it, which sounds wrong to me. I hope this absolutely friendly comment is useful for your own interest and I encourage you to make a video dedicated to Italian with the same passion and skill you had for your previous videos.
Got it, thank you!
If you knew Latin, this wouldn't be a problem haha! "scrībere"
How come English doesn't seem to prefer an anglicised "scrībere" for writing, but uses "to write" more frequently? "Scrib" or something along those lines exists in every language I speak as a non-native speaker:
En: to scribe (actually more prominent as "describe")
De: schreiben
Nl: schrijven
Scribble.
Scrabble!
My guesses:
1) Catalan
2) Ethiopian...I guess that's not a language, but I have seen the alphabet around Ethiopian restaurants
3) I guessed a language spoken in Kerala (I forgot the language was called Malayalam) but Tamil is right next door!
Fantastic video concept 🤙🤙
I hope you make more of these! an awesome series!
The first one is Catalan or Valenciano. Come on I live in the Valencian region in Spain!!!
Maxwell carty Yo tambien! Vivo en Alicante, tú?
Maxwell carty ¡Sevilla aquí!
I was going to answer the same thing but then the written examples were more Eastern Catalan, so I guessed he was making no distinction between the dialects :)
Viva la espania
Jo senc valencià apitxat
I guessed the first one, because it is my native language. By the way you used the pro-independence flag (la estelada) instead of the official flag (la senyera)
after reading the comments I realize you had already realized that. Apologies.
« Aquesta estelada blava te la guardes, és sa mateixa merda que Espanya però amb mes barres » Josep Valtònyc
;p
i guessed occitan
I got all three. For the first two I needed the written form. For the third I got a little lucky.
Just from listening, I thought the first was spanish, but then I saw that x is pronounced /ʃ/ and also some big similarities with french.
When I was listening to the second, it seemed similar to arabic and hebrew, but not quite so my first thought was maltese (as I thought I heard some latin words). Once I saw the writing, it was clear.
The third one was obviously an indian language (because of the retroflex consonants). Since I didn't identify indo-european cognates and it didn't sound like hindi, it had to be a dravidian language. It could have been either Tamil or Telugu, but I got lucky.
Hi @Langfocus.. i`m from Peru and I speak spanish, english, portuguese (Brazil) and catalan. I'm glad you put the catalan language in the first audio because I'm learning it and it's very cool that you did remember it because it's not very known. Please, make a video explaining the catalan language because I found it very interesting and it's a mix of italian, french, spanish, english and portuguese. Thanks!
I had spent some time in Catalonia, have a long time from Addis-Ababa and my mother tongue is Tamil. What a conicidence.
1. Spanish because it sounded spanish.
2. No idea but sounded like arabic but weird script maybe some african language.
3. Tamil. Have heard and seen the script before.
hello! could you please make more in depth videos of less popular languages like catalan or tamil? although they aren't spoken a lot they do have huge historical and cultural backgrounds. keep it up by the way, i love your vids!
Charlyjaja well...tamil is spoken by more than 70 mil people :)
Tamil is a very popular language. It’s spoken quite significantly
I love tamil language! It's the best language ever!
It seems like you're not a Tamil person, so can you tell me why you tell so? It's interesting to see a possible European show this much interest in this distant language.
Thank you.
That is my mother tongue😍
It comes handy if you're a Tamil
Just so you know, the audio for the second language doesn't work on mobiles because one of the audio tracks is inverted (left or right, doesn't matter which). A phone tries to combine both tracks to play through a mono speaker, but the tracks just cancel each other out. To fix this issue, either invert one of the tracks, or just duplicate the left to the right (or vice versa).
Yes, thanks. I’m aware of that issue and have been careful of it since this video. I decided not to reupload this video since it’s not such a major one, and it doesn’t effect the other parts of the video.
Wow Tamil. My mother tongue... have been longing for very long time to see my language in your videos ... Thanks Paul :)
Catalan sounds like an italian speaking spanish
Catalan sounded more like Portuguese to me
Zeke m To me it's like a hybrid of Spanish and French I speak both and understand Català about 85%
Raúl Martínez Castañeda tbf i speak no romance languages
It sounds like spanish but I knew it wasn't that so I guessed portuguese.
No, that is the Argentinian accent.
I guessed right on catalan. first i thought portuguese but I heard Una so I thought some other very similar romance
romance language*
You know that you can edict comments, right?
edit*
+Patrick Hodson Please tell me that you did this on purpose
idc
my guesses:
1) Spanish all thanks to emphasise on rrrr.
2) Arabic due to the tone/sound.
3) Tamil because I am an Indian Da!! But I do not understand it and I also recognized the script though I cannot read it.
1. Taco
2. Injera
3. Chapati
4. The presenter speak, Burger.
Hi, everyone! I hope you like the video.
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First, I thought that it was the Romanian language. After reading the script, it didn't seem like it though so I stayed neutral and really didn't have any idea of what it was.
For the second one, it didn't sound very similar to any language I know, but after reading the script, I immediately guessed it was Amharic as I don't think any other language uses the script.
For the third one, it didn't sound like any language I've heard of either, but I did know that the script pretty much guaranteed it was a south asian language, though I didn't know which one because I don't quite know the script differences between them.
1. That's definitely catalan. I'm spanish so I can recognise it easily. Also be careful, you have used the separatist flag for ilustrating the language. That would get some people mad. 2. That sounds between slavic and arabic. I would say persian or some language of the Caucasus. 3. Well, that is something from Central Asia. Maybe kazakh?
At the begining I also thought it was russian, but I recognized "salam".
I thought it sounded a little Slav-ish too :P
Chusky venty Tienes razón, pero esa bandera representa al menos al 50% de los catalanes, por lo que tampoco está mal su uso.
Pablo Cacho No, si yo no soy de los que van a ofenderse. Pero esa bandera tiene un significado más político que cultural. Pero esa es mi opinión.
Chusky venty Concuerdo (aunque prácticamente todo tiene un fuerte significado político) y tampoco he insinuado que te ofendiese :p
1) I don't know: it's romance but I'm not sure what
2) it's a bit like Hebrew and Arabic, but I don't know what
3) Christ, that's fast! some Indian language due to the script
1 is Italian.
Daniel Rocha heh, good one
The moment i saw the written part for the 2nd example, i knew it was some sort of African language like Berber or Ethiopian
There is no Ethiopian per se. A number of different languages are used there. Of course you were right with the location.
4:08 i see those words everywhere and that langauge is *TAMIL*
1-catalan
2-amhari, when I heard the Salaam and semitic phonemes, and the writing confirmed it.
3-Some Indian language. When I saw the writing I knew it was dravidian though.
There seems to be a problem with the Amharic sample, I couldn't here it at all!
Same here
me too
Maybe it is fixed, I could see it.
An Divroer same here
I LOVE THESE!!!
Cool! Please share them, they don't get many views. :)
Shared in the Ethnobotanical Conservation Organization (Anthropology and Ethnobotany organization) on FB and other sites!
1. Catalan. I guessed it because it sounded very similar to spanish without being completely spanish haha
2. At first I thought of a Semitic languages (which Amharic actually is) but then I hesitated and even thought of Armenian.. So yeah..
3. I guessed it was a language from India mostly based on the pronunciation of the fourth sample I think.. It had that Indian style even though it's not hindi and indo-european
1. Knew it wasn't Spanish, knew it was some smaller spoken Romance Language
2. Knew Amharic only from writing, but recognized Semitic from listening
3. Guessed Burmese, no clue
My favorite (discontinued) series on this channel.
1: Catalan (i got it right because i'm spanish)
2:Some eastern african language
3:Laosian
that is what i guessed
Random Man i thought number 3 was laosian aswell.
It's not Laosian, it's Laotian, I think, could be wrong though.
Bloodchief5 i guessed it to be a south-east asian language but can't say witch one
Laotian is a tonal language
1 yeah Catalan
2 Persian 😕
3- somewhere in india
Amharic = Persian? Never heard of that.
1. Spanishy Italian, so, maybe Catalan? I was right!
2. The writing system betrayed Amharic. The spoken example only told me that's it's a language of a Muslim nation (salaam).
3. So, it's an Indian language, but not Hindi or Urdu. I'll vote Sinhalese. Oh, it's Tamil. I was somewhat close, at least geographically.
Ethiopia is majorly Christian.
Ethiopia was one of the first countries on earth to become a Christian nation. Long before Europe.
WhiteScorpio2 cool tip about differentiating Sinhalese, the script has very very few straight lines because it was originally pressed onto leaves, and curled lines would not cause the leaves to split
Crysis97 Ok? we don't care
Cicero You do care. Or you wouldn't have answered me dumbfuck. Besides, I hate people like you. Does it feel good now? You are a mean person.
1. Hearing: i hear trilled r, sounds like romance but doesn’t sound like the straight up ones
Saw script: Corsican? Catalan?
Saw answer: yaaaaay
2. Hearing: salam? Muslim influenced? Sounds southeast asian
Saw script: aaaaa i see script. Amharic
Saw answer: yaaaaay
3. Hearing: ok retroflex consonants, i think Indian subcontinent
Saw script: Bengali? Assam?
Saw answer: oooooo ok… interesting. I thought it had a unique abugida not similar to the ones i saw
Thanks for the cool videos!!!
1. Basque
2. Amharic
3. Tamil
What has to do spanish?
1) Catalan, or maybe Occitan?
2) Sounds like Amharic?
3) Sounds like a language from Southern India... Tamil maybe?
Good guesses!
"இன்பத்தேன்(தமிழ் ) வந்து பாயுது காதினிலே " - பாரதியார்
Thank you brother.My language always unique #TAMIL
I'd love to see more in this series!
1.- As a Spaniard who watches the news, I immediately identified it as Catalan.
2.- I had no clue from any of the samples, even being capable of identifying Hebrew and (probably) Arabic from spoken samples.
3.- I only dared to guess it was a language from India from the written sample.
do a video on somali language please
You mean the Somalian dialect of Arabic?
no i mean the somali language
Saed Sulayman
I thought it was a form of Arabic. Nevermind.
it okay but the two language are very similar some poeple think we speak arabic but we dont
Saed Sulayman
AHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! XDDDDDD XOOOO X00000
It was either Catala or Romanian for me
nvrmind i saw si us plau and i know its catalan
Aquesta llengua és el català!!!!!
Català valencià apitxat (precisament xD)
1) I guessed a language similar to Spanish and thought there was a French influence too. 2) No idea. I even heard Amharic before but that didn't help. 3) Again, no idea. All 3 videos were fascinating! Thanks!
2:12 My right ear really enjoyed this part
i am Tamil
1- I'll say Catalan because that sounds close to Portuguese and Catalan is essentially a mix of old Portuguese and Spanish.
2- This one sounds Arabic but with less "R" sounds so I'll say Persian
3-Alright, this sounds Asian so I'll say some kind of Indian language.
Álvaro Lopes actually Catalan doesn't have nothing to do with mediaeval Galician-Portuguese, but it is related to Occitan
Álvaro Lopes catalan sounds close to anything but portuguese. Maybe italian/french/spanish...
There are actually a lot of sounds in Catalan that are closer to Portuguese than to Castilian, since the latter is actually less conservative when compared to its medieval version. Other Iberian languages didn't have such a significant sound change. If you search for Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish), you'll also note that it sounds more like Portuguese than Castilian, eventhough the language is actually derived from the last one.
As a Portuguese national I can tell you Catalan sounds a lot more like Portuguese than Castillian.
OohSugarCrumbs as a Galician national I can tell you no one said that Catalan couldn't sound like Portuguese, well, It can sound whatever your ears want, but Catalan will never be (as the main comment says) a mixture between Portuguese and Spanish, because it's not.
Im Spanish so I guessed Catalonian right. Im also glad you used the independence flag as every region shoud be able to choose their own parlament.
Nesty CB lo entendí pero no supe que idioma fue este y solo supe que tiene algo en común y pensé que es algo del mundo nuevo
#1 Catalan (spanish similarities)
#2 Amharic (Ge'ez script)
#3 Tamil (Tamil Script)
Its amazing how good you get at guessing languages after playing the great language game. Guessed them all right
2nd language didn't have sound :(
It doesn't play properly from a smartphone speaker for some reason, but it does play with headphones or on a computer.
hahaha the flag of Catalonia thank you for supporting the independence Paul
That was unintentional. I don't know anything about the independence issue.
மர்ம மொழியா...?நீங்க video போட்டா எங்கமொழி மர்மமொழியா...?
Laksh KrishPillai аз не ти разбирам
இவங்க சொன்னா உண்மை ஆகுமா நண்பா
той каза, че тамми не е мистериозен език
Dude ennathu ithu, "Mystery" is not an insult, chill out LK Pillai
Apparon muppathi oru likes vera
My guesses were:
1. Portuguese (close but incorrect)
2. Arabic (sounds like but incorrect)
3. Tamil (correct)
I have friends who are from India so I got the third one correct but I don't know the language.
I guessed Catalan because I remembered how it was mixed Spanish / French, I never heard of Amharic before, guessed Arameic, Tamil was a complete mystery for me :) thanks for these challenges, I look forward to guessing more Mystery Languages! :)
Catalan. It's like the French gave the Spanish their writing system.
Isn't this that Ethiopian language? I can't remember its name, but the writing looks like that language's Abugida.
It looks like Syriac? It looks like it has an aleph at the end of one of the words. It's distinctive because it looks like a snake.
First two were good, the last was way off. Interesting, I don't think I've ever heard of that language!
1. Spanish... Very close!
2. Amharic. Immediately recognized the script.
3. Tamil... Correct! I recognize the accent and the general flow.
1. Portuguese. Because it sounded like spanish, but it wasn't.
2. Amharic. I understood it was semitic from the listening part, then the script gave me the final clue.
3. Bengali. I have to admit, I just picked a random Indian language that wasn't urdu or hindi. By the way, I didn't know that Tamil and Bengali have different writing systems.
Hi Paul! The spoken samples of the first language are not exactly catalan but valencian ( catalan dialect spoken in Valencia area, although the consideration as dialect or language has political influences ).
Grammar and vocabulary are 95% like catalan ( they say "per favor" and not "si us plau" ) and the pronunciation is like a mix between catalan and spanish ( like speaking catalan with spanish accent ), so it's a bit easier to understand to spanish speakers
Keep up the good work!
The word ABUGIDA was taken from the Ethiopian Ge'ez literary books and the Amharic/Ge'ez character chart is called Abugida through its history of 2000 years.
1. Basque,
2. Ahmaric, sounded like Persian a bit to me but the script helped me out the most
3. Nepali? Idk it tripped me up