Name That Language!

[fusijui]

It feels a little cosmically unfair, since it was just a week ago that (I'm pretty sure) I was reading about this one, courtesy of our language-survey-writing friend Foley... if that doesn't nudge anyone else in the right direction by tomorrow morning I'll speak up with what I think is a good guess.

[Karch]

Is it Papuan?

[Pabappa]

As far as I know, capital schwa in its backwards-E form is only used in Africa ... other languages just use a large version of the lowercase glyph. On the other hand, a lot of languages don't have well-standardized orthographies. I still get an African feel from this one based on the above and the phoneme frequencies, though ... lots of voiced stops, but not a single occurrence of /p/ or /t/. (And no /g/ either, which could be a sign that it's spoken somewhere near the Sahara.)


edit: now that i think of it, though ..... maybe the stop system doesnt distinguish voice at all and b d k is just a convention, given the VOT of velar stops is typically longer than those further front. But I still think this is African.

[Qwynegold]

Hmm, is it Niger-Congo at least?

[fusijui]

I started to doubt my "identification" last night, but went back and double-checked, and I'm gonna say: Sentani! (Papuan! But dangerously close to Vanuatu, really.)

[bradrn]

I started to doubt my "identification" last night, but went back and double-checked, and I'm gonna say: Sentani! (Papuan! But dangerously close to Vanuatu, really.)

Aargh! Yes.

[fusijui]

I'm sorry; it does feel like it's not quite fair... but last week I was browsing through Foley's Papuan languages survey, and went down a few rabbit holes he pointed out -- Cowan's grammar of Sentani being one of them. It does have a distinctive-looking orthography, which is the only reason I still remembered it, TBH.

Coming up with decent 'contestants' on this game show is not easy for me, actually, so it'll be a bit later today or tomorrow I get something up. Something nice and normal and not Austronesian

[fusijui]

OK, here's a fun one (I hope):

Disa dikuni guang, wusa wukuni guang. Jige-la ning ge sao saoser bang bai. Ning gejiang ma, ni shijie yige huashi nuqiji rijiang bai, dazi diger ge beilaser bang, bo-nang bariser bang. Yigua ning geji yaoji nuqiji riling ma, ni taolai-ni dughuli zhuerge baoji rijiang bai. Gan keliji, “Du dasi ning ge’a, Chuna Gaga, Yehu Gaga, bi zou huashi-ni mieshi xiku duoghuolang diaoli-a bai. Huashi nangda zhua kaikeku, ta ghu-luo ti-ni jiashi-ni beila ri bai.” Ning gejiang ma, taolai yigua duoghuolang diaoliji huashi-ni mieshi guiling bai. Ning geji barila xisa huashi bari dalang, ting geji barila xisa bari dalang, taolai gan yibenzi diaoli yaolang bai. Huashi beilakuni yigua-nang ge ge, luoti-nang tai ge zhuajiang. Taolai ning be huashi-ni shuduer danang yizhuan herge nuqi rijiang bai. Chuna dai Yehu ghula xi danang dimei a bo a luoti a nisi-ni yigua bari rijiang bai. Gan sange-la yichuer kuerjiang ma, taolai kelikuni shi ma, “Nige luoti-ni ma Chuna qi musi! Qi jiaoduer khuoni zhuani a buxidi, ning gesa, qimai-du gezai bang bai. Nige bo-ni ma Yehu qi heji xi bai!”

(Lightly retranscribed; hyphens here represent clitic attachments.)

[bradrn]

Sino-Tibetan?

EDIT: Also, spoken in China? That pseudo-Pinyin style of romanisation is very recognisable.

[fusijui]

That's... awfully broad. Any group/phylum/etc., at least, that it reminds you of?

Should have (re-)stated my approach to the thread -- I don't enjoy the 'Twenty Questions' approach at all, and am pretty disinclined to play it at much broader than the level of individual or closely-related languages. And if nobody recognizes it in a couple days, then we do the reveal and throw it back open to a new one. I just get sad feelz from the 'who can be the best meat algorithm?' approach.

In this case, yes, it's a Pinyin-based orthography, made in & for the PRC.

[bradrn]

Should have (re-)stated my approach to the thread -- I don't enjoy the 'Twenty Questions' approach at all, and am pretty disinclined to play it at much broader than the level of individual or closely-related languages. And if nobody recognizes it in a couple days, then we do the reveal and throw it back open to a new one. I just get sad feelz from the 'who can be the best meat algorithm?' approach.

OK, fine. I must admit that I don’t particularly enjoy that approach either. (Though surely a guess at the language family should be fine‽)

Oh, and a clarification: if no-one guesses it in a few days and it’s revealed, then who gets to pick the next language?

That's... awfully broad. Any group/phylum/etc., at least, that it reminds you of?

…

In this case, yes, it's a Pinyin-based orthography, made in & for the PRC.

Well, I’d say that ‘weird Pinyin orthographies’ is a pretty specific group! But going further: this looks more a Chinese language than anything else, is that it? Going even further, I’d say that it’s a Mandarin language (though presumably not Standard Mandarin).

[Karch]

There are some words that don't look Mandarin at all, though. I'd suspect a very Mandarin-influenced variety of another language. Wutun?

[fusijui]

It's not Wutun, though certainly very deeply influenced by Chinese (and not just the orthography). That's not much of a clue, is it? OK: Chinese is not the only other language that's been a huge influence on it.

As far as what to do in case of unsolved puzzles, I'd just throw it open to the first person to step up with something new. I'm not worried about a lack of people with fun obscurities up their sleeve, or about a lack of manners leading to pushing and shoving

[Karch]

Is it Mongolic?

[fusijui]

Yes, it is… and now we're no more than a coin-flip from its identity

Honestly it's just the Pinyinization that made me remember this, snicker, and wonder if I could pass it off as some difficult hillbilly cousin of Nuosu or Primi or whatever…

[bradrn]

Wutun? (Admittedly, that one’s not entirely ‘Mongolic’ per se.)

EDIT: Actually, no, it’s Monguor/Mangghuer — I found the sample text (in Slater’s book).

Next text:

Naempr eibentei smpo, ngki naempr ye. Mpowrwa ye ngki. Yempoka irau nongkom poi, nongkomt irau. Potarmpa toirai ngki, moro tetnuaengkai: “nongkom, yeki ani ni, parat, yar kirot ani, paranm onto krantei”. Naempr nongkom ngkoro: “bai”. Anai pngke po brarngke… nmaei brar surarrnt poi pi. Baoror teimerai pno parat. Naempr ngkompa yamakru, naempr naempa yamakru. Watic, naempr yow sowoi.

[fusijui]

Right on; specifically Minhe Tu — the two "dialects" are by any reasonable measure separate languages, which Slater advocates distinguishing as "Mangghuer" (Minhe Tu) vs. "Mongghuor" (Huzhu Tu). Further complicated by the fact that some members of the "Tu" ("Mongghuor", "Mongghul") ethnic group don't speak either, but instead the Wutun that you and Karch suggested.

PS: I think I recognize the new one too, but am gonna let it pass… I've got nothing left worthy of offering if I did guess it right again!

[Karch]

The new one seems familiar... Kanum? Now if only I'd remember the variety that's documented.

[bradrn]

The new one seems familiar... Kanum? Now if only I'd remember the variety that's documented.

Yes, it is indeed Kanum. (Though that name’s ambiguous: it can refer to either Ngarna, Ngkolmpu, or Smerky. The latter two have several dialects as well, though I’d say the exact dialect isn’t too important.)

[Karch]

Is it Ngkolmpu then?