Name That Language!

[Zju]

I agree with the guy who earlier said that rules better don't change willy-nilly each round. To that end, I propose to keep them as-is. Let's see if I remember them:

• Everyone has 96 hours to guess the language (equal to 4 astronomical days). If nobody guesses it in that timeframe, the closest guess wins. (but what if there are no guesses? or guesses only from different language families?)
• Each player has three attempts in total to guess the language. One of those may be spent as a question about linguistic genealogy OR as a question about geographic placement instead. One guess 24 hours per player.
• Unlimited number of yes/no questions.
• Fair play, no googling of parts of the prompt, etc.

So, guess the language:

اَرَبصقَاَ پِثمُ صقلالاثَ نَ اَصنُوَ نَبَسَىصقَهَ پِثمَ (٤صط. دَ ن.اَ. - ١ صط.), ىَقٌاَ وضِحٌدىِسى دَ صطَرَژِطنَاَرَمَىصقَهَ.
قِرٌنَق پِثمَ صپرَوَ نَلاوَ. ضنَچ‎نَىَ قٌلقَصسى لِطَر مَىَ ٤ نَپ‎ِصَنِّ و ضَلَژنَصسِ اِد پَضِسِاِ و صلٌوَ, نَقَطٌرِىَ پَرِ لِطَر صطوَرَىٌسى نَ پِثمَ لِهَطٌرِ.

[bradrn]

I agree with the guy who earlier said that rules better don't change willy-nilly each round.

That would have been me, I think. With my previous post, I simply was suggesting some topics for discussion, rather than asking everyone to follow through on those suggestions just because.

(but what if there are no guesses?

Extend the time period, I guess.

or guesses only from different language families?)

I dunno. Go with whichever one ‘feels’ closest? See if there’s a macrofamily you can use to compare suggested macro-genealogic distances?

Each player has three attempts in total to guess the language. One of those may be spent as a question about linguistic genealogy OR as a question about geographic placement instead. One guess 24 hours per player.

Oh, so it looks like now we’re restricting geographic questions as well. (Did we do that last round? I don’t think so, but maybe I’m misremembering.)

اَرَبصقَاَ پِثمُ صقلالاثَ نَ اَصنُوَ نَبَسَىصقَهَ پِثمَ (٤صط. دَ ن.اَ. - ١ صط.), ىَقٌاَ وضِحٌدىِسى دَ صطَرَژِطنَاَرَمَىصقَهَ.
قِرٌنَق پِثمَ صپرَوَ نَلاوَ. ضنَچ‎نَىَ قٌلقَصسى لِطَر مَىَ ٤ نَپ‎ِصَنِّ و ضَلَژنَصسِ اِد پَضِسِاِ و صلٌوَ, نَقَطٌرِىَ پَرِ لِطَر صطوَرَىٌسى نَ پِثمَ لِهَطٌرِ.

Alright, you must be joking here. I can’t read Arabic script! (Hebrew, yes; Cyrillic, I suppose so; Greek, vaguely; but Arabic, no, not at all.) With that in mind, I suppose I will have to sit this round out, unless you feel like giving a romanization.

[Vilike]

Does this language have vowel harmony processes? Does it have non-pulmonic consonants?

[cedh]

اَرَبصقَاَ پِثمُ صقلالاثَ نَ اَصنُوَ نَبَسَىصقَهَ پِثمَ (٤صط. دَ ن.اَ. - ١ صط.), ىَقٌاَ وضِحٌدىِسى دَ صطَرَژِطنَاَرَمَىصقَهَ.
قِرٌنَق پِثمَ صپرَوَ نَلاوَ. ضنَچ‎نَىَ قٌلقَصسى لِطَر مَىَ ٤ نَپ‎ِصَنِّ و ضَلَژنَصسِ اِد پَضِسِاِ و صلٌوَ, نَقَطٌرِىَ پَرِ لِطَر صطوَرَىٌسى نَ پِثمَ لِهَطٌرِ.

Alright, you must be joking here. I can’t read Arabic script! (Hebrew, yes; Cyrillic, I suppose so; Greek, vaguely; but Arabic, no, not at all.) With that in mind, I suppose I will have to sit this round out, unless you feel like giving a romanization.

Same for me.

[Richard W]

I can’t read Arabic script! (Hebrew, yes; Cyrillic, I suppose so; Greek, vaguely; but Arabic, no, not at all.) With that in mind, I suppose I will have to sit this round out, unless you feel like giving a romanization.

I think there are clues in the way the Arabic script is used - they would be lost in transliteration.

In that passage, is dammatan used to represent anything like /un/? I don't see the other two short vowels being doubled, which seems odd.

[Zju]

Alright, you must be joking here. I can’t read Arabic script! (Hebrew, yes; Cyrillic, I suppose so; Greek, vaguely; but Arabic, no, not at all.) With that in mind, I suppose I will have to sit this round out, unless you feel like giving a romanization.

You can still ask yes/no questions, and at least check what are the most prominent letters, ergo maybe phonemes.

Does this language have vowel harmony processes? Does it have non-pulmonic consonants?

No and no.

In that passage, is dammatan used to represent anything like /un/? I don't see the other two short vowels being doubled, which seems odd.

Yes, it is.

I'll provide a transliteration after the round ends.

[Moose-tache]

Guys, calm down. You can learn the Arabic script in about fifteen minutes.

Do tha and qaf have the same realization they do in Arabic?

[bradrn]

Guys, calm down. You can learn the Arabic script in about fifteen minutes.

I disagree. Certainly you can read through a document about Arabic in 15 minutes (or less)… but it would take much, much longer to memorise the letters to the extent that you can recognise a language written in Arabic script.

[Moose-tache]

Guys, calm down. You can learn the Arabic script in about fifteen minutes.

I disagree. Certainly you can read through a document about Arabic in 15 minutes (or less)… but it would take much, much longer to memorise the letters to the extent that you can recognise a language written in Arabic script.

I am baffled by this. You only need to read two lines of text, maybe a hundred glyphs. I refuse to believe that this is a challenge for you.

EDIT: To test, I transliterated the text for myself in just under seven minutes, starting with no knowledge about the non-standard characters. I believe that you can do just as well as me or better. You just look and write down what you see.

[bradrn]

Guys, calm down. You can learn the Arabic script in about fifteen minutes.

I disagree. Certainly you can read through a document about Arabic in 15 minutes (or less)… but it would take much, much longer to memorise the letters to the extent that you can recognise a language written in Arabic script.

I am baffled by this. You only need to read two lines of text, maybe a hundred glyphs. I refuse to believe that this is a challenge for you.

EDIT: To test, I transliterated the text for myself in just under seven minutes, knowing nothing about the non-standard characters. I believe that you can do just as well as me or better.

OK, that is true. My confusion arose from your use of the word ‘learn’ in your previous post — I thought you were stating that it would take 15 minutes to ‘properly’ learn Arabic (as in, be able to read it without needing a reference), which of course is nearly impossible, hence my incredulity. Obviously a simple transliteration is pretty easy!

[Zju]

Do tha and qaf have the same realization they do in Arabic?

I'm assuming that by tha you mean ṯāʾ, in which case no and no. I'm using MSA as a reference to pronunciation of both letters.

[Vilike]

Does this language have nominal genders/noun classes? Does it have more than three?

[Richard W]

Do tha and qaf have the same realization they do in Arabic?

I'm assuming that by tha you mean ṯāʾ, in which case no and no. I'm using MSA as a reference to pronunciation of both letters.

As opposed to U+062B ARABIC LETTER THEH, the second letter of the second word? That's a letter whose Arabic pronunciation is often not as in MSA.

I did see a medial U+066E ARABIC LETTER DOTLESS BEH - I presume that's a typo for U+0649 ARABIC LETTER ALEF MAKSURA.

[Zju]

Does this language have nominal genders/noun classes? Does it have more than three?

1. Yes
2. The sources I'm using say that it doesn't.

Do tha and qaf have the same realization they do in Arabic?

I'm assuming that by tha you mean ṯāʾ, in which case no and no. I'm using MSA as a reference to pronunciation of both letters.

As opposed to U+062B ARABIC LETTER THEH, the second letter of the second word? That's a letter whose Arabic pronunciation is often not as in MSA.

I did see a medial U+066E ARABIC LETTER DOTLESS BEH - I presume that's a typo for U+0649 ARABIC LETTER ALEF MAKSURA.

1. I did refer to U+062B ARABIC LETTER THEH with ṯāʾ. If you have a specific dialectal pronunciation in mind you could specify it.
2. I did a search for U+066E and didn't find anything.

[Moose-tache]

What I'm learning is that if you want to pour a can of gasoline and fireworks on this thread, just use the Arabic script.

Anyway, another question: does this language use separate pronouns for male and female referents?

[fusijui]

I think in the past there's been a presumption of using Latin transcriptions for a number of reasons -- to avoid immediately giving away historical and geographic clues, to level the playing field, and to focus on the linguistic element and not the scribal one; and also there's been the general guide of not selecting orthographies (however valid, original, or interesting) to ramp up the difficulty/gotcha! level of identifying the underlying language.

That said, some novelty is not a bad thing

[Zju]

Anyway, another question: does this language use separate pronouns for male and female referents?

Yes.

[Richard W]

I'm assuming that by tha you mean ṯāʾ, in which case no and no. I'm using MSA as a reference to pronunciation of both letters.

As opposed to U+062B ARABIC LETTER THEH, the second letter of the second word? That's a letter whose Arabic pronunciation is often not as in MSA.

I did see a medial U+066E ARABIC LETTER DOTLESS BEH - I presume that's a typo for U+0649 ARABIC LETTER ALEF MAKSURA.

1. I did refer to U+062B ARABIC LETTER THEH with ṯāʾ. If you have a specific dialectal pronunciation in mind you could specify it.
2. I did a search for U+066E and didn't find anything.

1. Quite a lot of Arabic lacks [θ], but that's not directly relevant to identifying this language.
2. Sorry, I got confused with one of the articles on Arabic script orthographies I consulted.

[Nortaneous]

Are there nasal vowels?

[Zju]

Are there nasal vowels?

No.

More: show

Good question. I thought I could reasonably answer either yes and no, but couldn't find any source that confirms their presence. Answering 'no' makes more sense from game perspective IMO anyway.