Mystery Language (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Mystery Language
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18 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3 Next >>

Vinlander
Groupie
Canada
Joined 5821 days ago
62 posts - 69 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: French

Message 9 of 18

08 April 2010 at 3:54am | IP Logged

I'm gonna go with either greek or lithuanian, or something from the balkans.
1 person has voted this message useful

Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7156 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes

20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

Message 10 of 18

08 April 2010 at 5:43am | IP Logged

dangre37 wrote:

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.

I'm tempted to rule out Hungarian. The word for 'here' is "itt" [static location] or "ide" [motion toward 'here']. Neither "vweee" nor "nay-COOT" ring a bell for me in any of the languages that I am familiar with.
1 person has voted this message useful

ManicGenius
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5481 days ago
288 posts - 420 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Esperanto, French, Japanese

Message 11 of 18

08 April 2010 at 5:57am | IP Logged

Maybe nay-COOT was a non-sense word? I'm pretty sure that a lot of the kids I know make
up random crap to say all the time, just to say it and aggravate the parents.
1 person has voted this message useful

Aineko
Triglot
Senior Member
New Zealand
Joined 5448 days ago
238 posts - 442 votes

Speaks: Serbian*, English^C2, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin

Message 12 of 18

08 April 2010 at 8:04am | IP Logged

Sounds like French but not French...did it sound a lot like a Romance language or not?
Why don't you go to something like LibriVox and just listen to samples of few potential
candidates, maybe you will be able to recognize one of them as the one you've heard.
1 person has voted this message useful

apatch3
Diglot
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 6185 days ago
80 posts - 99 votes

Speaks: Pashto, English*
Studies: Japanese, French^A2

Message 13 of 18

08 April 2010 at 10:54pm | IP Logged

could it have been portugese?
1 person has voted this message useful

dangre37
Newbie
United States
Joined 5389 days ago
12 posts - 16 votes
Studies: Russian

Message 14 of 18

13 April 2010 at 8:45pm | IP Logged

apatch3 wrote:

could it have been portuguese?

Yes! I believe it was!

Previously I had no idea of how Portuguese sounds. I just assumed it sounded like Spanish. Then this morning I went onto Audible.com and listened to samples of the Pimsleur Portuguese lessons. I was very surprised how Portuguese sounds. It is so much more like French than Spanish. It is beautiful. This must be it. I also listened to the Pimsleur Romanian samples, and it did not at all match the language I heard.
1 person has voted this message useful

The Blaz
Senior Member
Canada
theblazblog.blogspotRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5600 days ago
120 posts - 176 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Swahili, French, Sign Language, Esperanto

Message 15 of 18

13 April 2010 at 11:08pm | IP Logged

Now you must learn Portuguese to perfection and pass the rest of your days waiting for
this mystery milf to return...
1 person has voted this message useful

Rodrigo Chaves
Hexaglot
Newbie
BrazilRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5432 days ago
12 posts - 18 votes
Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, English, Spanish, Italian, Catalan
Studies: Japanese, French

Message 16 of 18

13 April 2010 at 11:31pm | IP Logged

I don't think it was Portuguese because the word "here" is "aqui" and we don't have sounds like VWEE or nay-COOT.

1 person has voted this message useful

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