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Mystery Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| dangre37 Newbie United States Joined 5389 days ago 12 posts - 16 votes Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 18 07 April 2010 at 7:17pm | IP Logged |
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Yesterday I was at work in a large department store, and a woman came into the electronics department looking for a new digital camera. She was in her early thirties, attractive, white-skinned, European, with an interesting accent. It was clear that English was not her native language, although she spoke English very well. She had a little girl with her, her daughter, about four years old, who was running around in the store. She spoke to her daughter in her native language. The only word I remember her speaking was the very last word in a sentence, stated somewhat forcefully, a word pronounced as “VWEE”. It appeared as though it must mean something like “here”, as she was clearly telling her daughter to stay put and stop running around.
I thought about asking her what language this was, but was unsure whether this would be the proper thing to do. It was, after all, none of my business. But I could instantly rule out a whole array of languages whose general sound I was familiar with: Russian, German, Spanish, Italian. Although I don't understand all these languages, I can tell when someone is speaking in one of them. Well, certainly it was not a Germanic language. Or Italian or Russian or Spanish. Later, as she was about to leave the store, I overheard her talking to her daughter in this other language. It sounded like French but it did not appear to be French, for I had studied French yet could not pick out even one French word among all the words she spoke; yet the tone of this language sounded so very like French. It was beautiful and strange, whatever it was. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Saif Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5612 days ago 122 posts - 208 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (Levantine)*, French | Message 2 of 18 07 April 2010 at 8:29pm | IP Logged |
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Not a lot to go by, but my guess is Hungarian
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| pfwillard Pro Member United States Joined 5699 days ago 169 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 18 07 April 2010 at 9:01pm | IP Logged |
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Did it have a lot of nasal sounds or was it more like a case of "same tune, different lyrics"?
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 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5847 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 18 07 April 2010 at 9:11pm | IP Logged |
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It's a bit difficult to distinguish this, if you can quote only one word, which maybe misspelled.
Fasulye 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dangre37 Newbie United States Joined 5389 days ago 12 posts - 16 votes Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 18 07 April 2010 at 11:58pm | IP Logged |
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I forgot to mention that the little girl responded "nay-COOT" to her mom, when they were talking together. At first, I thought she meant, n'ecoute, thinking it was French, but I don't think she meant that. My guess is that it was a French-sounding Romance language, namely Romanian. There seem to be a large number of French-sounding Romanian words.
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| vientito Senior Member Canada Joined 6338 days ago 212 posts - 281 votes | Message 6 of 18 08 April 2010 at 12:04am | IP Logged |
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if you hear that language again do you think you could pick it out?
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| dangre37 Newbie United States Joined 5389 days ago 12 posts - 16 votes Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 18 08 April 2010 at 12:47am | IP Logged |
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I think so, yes. It was very much like listening to French, but it was not French.
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| canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5495 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 8 of 18 08 April 2010 at 3:46am | IP Logged |
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Just speculation... but perhaps it was Occitan (unlikely to find many speakers in USA),
Catalan (sounds closer to Spanish though I think), or Breton (again, unlikely). I have no idea what Basque sounds like, but maybe a speaker/studier can confirm. Since the Basque homeland is partially in France, could it perhaps sound like French? I speak French pretty well, but one time I mistook a Russian speaker for speaking French. It could have been something at the subconscious level messing with me. Hungarian, Portuguese, Romanian, Irish or Albanian are possibilities too. Edited by canada38 on 08 April 2010 at 3:49am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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