Mystery Languages - Can You Guess What They Are?

I hope you enjoy today's mystery language challenge!
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Sources of mystery language audio:
Haitian Creole: • Beautiful Haitian Girl...
Frisian: "De Fuke" • Video
www.languageand...
Sardinian: • Consolata Melis, 105 y...
Music:
Main music: looped sample from "Roll the Top Down" by Gunnar Olsen.
Outro: "Rollin' Back" by MK2.

[@Langfocus]

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)

[@BRockandriffs]

Would love for this to become a series.

[@fresh10]

Hell yeah!!0

[@HelloWorld1947]

Agreed!

[@daviseabragrossi9161]

where do I sign this petition?

[@mohamedfarzan8721]

that would be a never ending series.

[@austindrake4937]

definitely!

[@behnamjohnson7518]

These are the first impressions I got hearing each of these three languages: 1. Something close to French 2.Something close to German 3.Something close to a romance language * (I couldn't say it's close to Italian) My native language is Persian and I am from Iran!! I am almost fluent in English and have just started learning German!!

[@giulianol]

Yay, I'm sardinian I was surprised to hear my language in your video.

[@Thenewbronzeagecollapse]

It's Campidanese Sardinian

[@bruh-zs2xp]

Do u like sardines?

[@Serendip98]

Ha ha, they spotted you.

[@eccine7203]

@@bruh-zs2xp cittidi e abbarra cittu, ca ti cumbedini.

[@eccine7203]

@@Thenewbronzeagecollapse It's "Limba de mesania", a sort of campidanese strongly influenced by logudorese.

[@guywhousesapseudonymonyout4272]

Max Weinreich: "A language is a dialect with an army and navy"

[@okiedokie56]

Best quote I've ever seen

[@elton1981]

And the mad who said it first said it in Yiddish!

[@okiedokie56]

So Basque is not a language. They have no Navy and no Army. Same with Czech , Hungarian and Slovak, No navy so they are not languages

[@okiedokie56]

Paul Wheeler Yiddish could be classified as a very heavy dialect of German

[@elton1981]

+Kolynk ah the line between dialect and language.

[@deeganw.8977]

1. French 2. A germanic language of some sort 3. I knew it was Sardinian right away cause of the word "sardu" in the written example.

[@eduardolobato3857]

1- Something related to French 2- Something related to English 3- Something close to Italian

[@aioacasa]

Sardinian is not close to Italian at all, it is more similar to Latin than it is to italian. Get some research done before you speak, no Italian speaker can understand it. Spanish people are the ones that could understand some of the words more because of the Spanish domination we had for centuries and the influence we got on our language. Su cunnu chi tind'ari bogau!

[@pauvermelho]

@@aioacasa Eduardo Cunha Lobato probably speaks Portuguese and so do I. To OUR ears... it's close to Italian, since we never heard no one speaking Latin because they are all dead (and it's not even near Spanish). Sardinian mighty be the most similar to Latin, but Italian comes in 2 place doesn't it?

[@aioacasa]

@@pauvermelho no, It doesn't. the second more near language is Spanish, because there are words coming directly from that language although the base is different. There are basically no words coming directly from italian because we speak it probably since the ventennio of Mussolini in a widespread way so it didn't have the time to mix. It's what I am saying. I never said that Spanish is very near to latin, like Sardinian is. For exemple the Sardinian word for window is ventana like in Spanish. We had like 4-5 centuries of Spanish/Catalan domination while we are Italians since 1861. It's just a pity that we are a bit losing the language in new generations.

[@pauvermelho]

@@aioacasa Some people disagree with you on Spanish being closer to Latin more than Italian On some sites the difference from Latin: Sardinian 8% Italian 12% Spanish 20% Romanian 23,5% Catalan 24% Occitan (Provençal) 25% Galician 30% Portuguese 31% French 44% I NEVER said that Sardinian came from Italian neither Eduardo Cunha Lobato, if you note he use the word "close", and on the previous options he uses the word "related". It's just close in terms of sound. Some people say that Portuguese sound like Russian, and Spanish sound like Greek and there is no relations between this languages. I kind of suspect that you received more influence from the Catalan than from the Spanish, didn't you?

[@pauvermelho]

@@aioacasa "It's just a pity that we are a bit losing the language in new generations." Is it standardized ? Do you have signs on it? Does the menu of restaurants are in Sardinian? Do you have books, newspapers on it? Is it taught in school? Do you speak it in radios, on television? (properly not like in Galizia where they acastellianeted the language) If not, what are you waiting for? Waiting for Rome to do that for you? You guys need some lessons from the Québécois people. Sorry but if you don't do it no one else is going to do it for you.

[@rohanpandey2037]

The last language sounds like it's coming from across the room. Scared me for a second!

[@honeydane5646]

frisian was easy, also because In the sample trxt it literally said Frisia: fryslân

[@frzferdinand72]

Same with Sardinian, it said sardu.

[@omarmouffok131]

Frisian is so fascinating that I'd love to learn it. It's similar to Old English.

[@mcgoldenblade4765]

I thought it was Dutch, but after I saw the writing I found it was some other germanic language similar to dutch

[@RookSchelp]

Its awsome to hear that people are intrested in Frisia. I come from "Fryslan" and I never would have thought that people want to learn it. I can say that "Frysk" sounds alot like German and in the noth of Germany they kind of speak in the same way. Just saying that its awsome to see someone from another country show so much intrest in the "Fryske taal" (Frisian Language) "Lokwinske" good luck!

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

When I visited the Netherlands in 1995 I bought a teach yourself book for Frisian. Unfortunately I've never used it tho!

[@prototype615h]

my guesses are 1. Some sort of French creole, perhaps developed in Africa 2. Afrikaans -It sounded like Dutch/German but it was written so differently 3. Portuguese

[@zdzisekkultywator3099]

My guesses are 1. South african (no idea whitch) 2. Frisian 3.Sardinian

[@m.pellegrini2540]

1) Haitian Creole, it sounds like French mixed with an African language. 2) Old English or Old Norse. Something ancient and Germanic anyway. 3) A language of Italy, like Neapolitan, Sardinian or Sicilian! I understood everything, it's about a woman who married and the birth of two twins!

[@m.pellegrini2540]

Almost everything, but not all.

[@Crick1952]

Frisian is intellegible with Old English, so good job!

[@ajejebrazorf6166]

Sei italiano? Io non avevo proprio idea di che lingua fosse (ma sono del nord, forse è per quello)

[@stompasrule]

Si, anchio! Non ho capito niente!

[@renmckinnell7693]

This is my favorite video series! Thank you so much for making these! All of my guesses have been pretty spot on so far; these videos bring joy to a language nerd like myself :)

[@mynamewhatis7254]

I think moun probably came from the french word, monde (meaning world) which is a word also used to mean 'people' in some contexts. For example, "est ce qu'il y a du monde ici?" which means, "are there any people here?". Or "tout le monde" which means, "everyone (all the people)". Literal translation would be, "all the world", but it's an expression that means "all the people" or "everyone". Sorry I was repetitive. I'm tired. I don't owe you anything. Goodnight xD

[@pouletasse]

In Cajun French "moun" also means "people" and does come from French monde. Same in LA Creole, I think.

[@maloyaman113]

mynamewhatis i think you're right. it is the same in my native language, reunionese creole.

[@diouranke]

it also may be from some bantoid African languages, specifically from Congo where the word for person is muntu or mtu or something similar

[@alainprecieux8710]

I am Alain Précieux from Mauritius island in the Indian ocean. The words '' moun'''' or ''di moun'' is used in French based creoles in the French West Indies and French Guyana. Creole is also used 10,000 Km away on the islands of the Indian Ocean (Mauritius Reunion, Rodrigues and Seychelles). The word ''moun'' means '' person'' and comes from the French ''du monde'' . meaning ''people''. In Haiti ''moun' and ''Ti moun'' mean respectively ''person'' and ''child'' respectively.

[@alainprecieux8710]

I am Alain Précieux from Mauritius island in the Indian ocean. The words '' moun'''' or ''di moun'' is used in French based creoles in the French West Indies and French Guyana. Creole is also used 10,000 Km away on the islands of the Indian Ocean (Mauritius Reunion, Rodrigues and Seychelles). The word ''moun'' means '' person'' and comes from the French ''du monde'' . meaning ''people''. In Haiti ''moun' and ''Ti moun'' mean respectively ''person'' and ''child'' respectively.

[@DiMacky24]

My answers: 1. Patwa or Patois from the Caribean (Dominica maybe?) It sounds french in roots, but with a west-African intonation. 2. Sounds low German, maybe an East Prussian dialect. Maybe Frisian? 3. Scicilian, Sardinian or Corsican, the accent sounds quite non-standard Italian and the spelling follows conventions that fall between Latin and Arabic, so I would guess from a Mediterranean island.

[@DiMacky24]

Huh, I feel like I did not do too bad.

[@RCSVirginia]

Your answers for number three were exactly the same as mine.

[@erikroggeman7620]

very nice!

[@antonellobertone3903]

great job!but actually if you listen to a single sentence in sardinian matched with a single sentence in sicilian language you'll notice that they are a lot different.(for me sicilian is so cool) From an Italian of the Neapolitan zone :D

[@Philoglossos]

Writing these before I get the answers... 1. I guessed Haitian creole. The French vocab made it pretty obvious that it was some kind of French-based language, and Hatian Creole is the one I'm most familiar with. 2. I guessed Frisian. I was originally gonna guess Norwegian but then in written form I noticed the word "Norwegian" and that it looked more like the English word than like the Norwegian equivalent (Norsk? Or something like that?). 3. Sardinian. I speak Italian, and I immediately knew it was a regional language spoken in Italy. I saw "Sardu" (In Italian it's called "Sardo") and that was that xD. Interestingly Sardinian is actually the romance language that has changed the least from Vulgar Latin. You should do another one of these! It was fun! :D

[@budidis1578]

Wow, you got all of them right!

[@ledeol5605]

your Channel is simply amazing

[@Philoglossos]

Infatti, il sardo non è un dialetto dell'italiano xP. È la lingua più vicina al latino volgare da cui vengono tutte le lingue romanze xD. Un esempio è la parola "cento", che viene dalla parola latina "centum". Originariamente la pronuncia era tipo "chentum" (la lettera "c" si pronunciava sempre duro), ma questo suono ha cambiato prima delle lettere "i" ed "e" in tutte le lingue romanze a parte il sardo, in cui si dice "kentu."

[@ChristinaAChhor]

hey are you a cheater

[@ChristinaAChhor]

hey are you a cheater

[@filippocontri8763]

When your 1st language is Italian and you understand Scottish people better than Sardinian😂

[@Philoglossos]

Well, I hope you do lol. Scottish English is simply a regional variety of English that any native speaker would understand. Mentre, il sardo è una lingua completamente diversa dall'italiano, e infatti è la lingua più vicina al latino xP.

[@Octopussyist]

Not surprised. There is even a small minority on Sardinia who speaks Catala. In past centuries the seemingly "long" distances by sea, were actually the "shortest".

[@0o0Vanilla0o0]

When you are Italian and South Sardinian, but you can't understand the Sardinian logudorese 😂 When you're Italian and North Sardinian and you can't understand the Sardinian campidanese 😂

[@daviderosu3340]

Matteo Pescio e il sardo Centrale? Beh, io sono barbaricino DOC e vi posso dire che il cosiddetto "Nuorese/Baroniese/Barbaricino" è all'origine sia del sardo Settentrionale che di quello Meridionale. Tipo: "Io ero"; Nuorese: Dego/Ego fipo -Logudorese "Deo fipo", Baroniese: "Yeo 'ipo/fipo (in alcuni paesi, tipo a Orune a quanto pare dicono 'upo come a Ollolai e a Orgosolo"; Barbaricino: dipende dal paese, generalmente la radice è "Fui"; ora "fui" si usa solo nel mio paese, Oliena, ed esclusivamente di fronte alla consonante "n" per questioni di pronuncia della "f" (in Barbagia e in Baronia abbiamo il vizio di elidere la "f", la pronunciamo solo in rari casi), nella forma positiva si dice "ipo", a volte "ui", ma è raro, lo usano anche a Ollolai, a Mamoiada e a Gavoi (non a caso, se si esclude il mamoiadino che si somiglia un po' di meno, gli altri due dialetti son molto vicini all'olianese)... Inoltre, nel barbaricino è rimasto il pronome personale "ego", in alcuni paesi è diventato "eo", "deo"/"deu" vengono usati solo a Fonni, a Ovodda e a Olzai. E, of course, a Nuoro.

[@daviderosu3340]

0o0Vanilla0o0 ahahah, true...

[@tommyvercetti9413]

You got them subs! 100k! Unbelievable! I remember when this channel used to have around 20k subs and i was sure that the amount of viewers would not get bigger. Nice to know i was wrong. Well done! :)

[@Langfocus]

+Tommy Vercetti Thanks, Tommy!

[@jplowe2263]

More history on Frisian and Sardinian please

[@seid3366]

Just waitin in Sardinian

[@pearspeedruns]

He did a video on Frisian.

[@indibindylou]

I was so thrilled when I managed to guess Sardinian correctly 😄

[@murplesman]

I can speak French and the Haitian Creole was even confusing for me before there were some more obvious words. The accent is just really different.

[@carolameloni5627]

Thank you so much for your interesting videos!! I'm so proud you've mentioned Sardinian, which I consider to be my L2, being born in Sardinia...

[@lucasm4299]

1. French-like language 2. Germanic Language? 3. Sardinian

[@Procrustinator52]

True enough.

[@lochlannkingz5279]

same

[@belledejour15]

3. Italian-like language

[@dangerkeith3000]

same!

[@daanwilmer]

1. I guessed a French based creole, that's all. 2. Frisian / Frŷsk! Quite intelligble if you know Dutch and English, and should be recoginizable to any Dutchman. 3. Some Portuguese based language?

[@MarianneExJohnson]

I guessed Haitian Creole because I just happened to have watched Paul's video about it earlier today. :-) As a Dutchman I recognized Frisian right away, but I have trouble understanding it. I can read it pretty well, but of the spoken example I only caught bits and pieces... which is interesting because I've also heard Frisian speakers that I understood so easily, it was like they were speaking Dutch, just with some funny words thrown in here and there. It seems like it's pretty diverse for such a small language.

[@juniora2706]

I thought the same. The third seems "papiamento" for me when I just had listen it. The written form is closer italian.

[@zimonzieclown1633]

Daan Wilmer: I'm fluent in both Dutch and English and I barely recognise anything in Frisian.

[@aioacasa]

How in the entire hell is Sardinian supposed to be close to Italian in its written form? It is not even related

[@Cobalt985]

About an hour ago I watched his Frisian video and I immediately recognized some of the grammar... as well as "Fryslan" lmao

[@usa8529]

I really love that you included Sardinian. I really enjoyed the video. Please continue the series.

[@OuterSpacedVideos]

1. I guessed Haitian. Reason being is that it sounded similar to French but it also had a slight Caribbean vibe. 2. I guessed Frisian. To me it sounded Western European/Germanic, but I didn't recognise it as any of the major national languages I knew. This left me with a toss up between the 'lesser' languages that I knew in the region: Flemish, Frisian, and possibly one of the non-English languages spoken in the UK (Irish, Welsh, Gaelic). I figured that if it was Flemish, it would have a hint of French to it that I would have seen, and that if it was one of the UK languages then I'd probably be able to tell from the overall look of the language. This left me with Frisian. 3. I guessed Sicilian or Sardinian. It sounded a lot like Italian, and I knew at least one of the islands had it's own language, I just couldn't remember which one or whether they both did.

[@laxxius]

Outer Spaced they both do AFAIK

[@nothayley]

For #1 I thought it was some African language with French influence, like Congo.

[@TheDen-ec9xe]

Calling #3 Sardinian is kind of an overstatement, as there are many variations. Even I as a Sardinian had trouble trying to decipher it, as I'm more used to speak Italian and my local zone speaks a completely different dialect. I'm prone to say it was Campidanese Sardinian, the lingua franca of Southern Sardinia.

[@frakkintoasterluvva7920]

Outer Spaced I guessed Frisian because I've heard Frisian was most similar to Old English, and this really reminded me of OE in orthography and pronunciation (plus an occasional English sounding word).

[@YamiBarai21]

Flemish is Dutch, and it's nowhere close to French

[@Onneukbaar]

For my Frisian was easy because I'm Dutch

[@joostarendbernhard5112]

Jep! Ik ben ook van plan ooit nog Frysk te gaan leren.

[@hansdtenbrukke8565]

Aigolith // Roeligan // Serpentje Mast seker dwaan! 😉

[@anaelhonings8683]

WOW! Hey Paul, I never heard anyone speaking one of these 3 languages but you know what? I guessed all of them right after hearing a few seconds any!!! I'm soooo proud!!! :-D 1- French is my native language and some years ago I was into "zouk" music (mostly sung in Creole) 2- I always lived in Belgium (I still do) so I was taught some Dutch at school. The accent sounded like Dutch spoken in the Netherlands but the words were different so I just thought of a part of the Netherland... and Friesland was the first to pop in my mind! 3- It sounded like Italian but like coming from an isolated part so I thought of an isolated part of Italy... an island would do the job... Sardaigne! :-) I always have an intuitive "thing" for languages (I hope my English is not too lame... I never learned it at school, I just loved to listen to English rock bands and watch MTV as a teenager so this is how I learned) I just wished I could've made something about it in my life.

[@mohammedjalloh7658]

I got haitian creole right! I thought frisian was Norwegian. Close enough. I thought Sardinian was Swahili 😳

[@mohammedjalloh7658]

And YES you should do more videos like this...make them longer too!

[@OliverRWeber]

Swahili! hehehehe ;)

[@mohammedjalloh7658]

King Libra yeah, i don't where that came from...it sounded african from the audio, but i knew i was wrong the minute i saw the text, and even then i couldn't figure what sort of language that was

[@OliverRWeber]

+Eisen Heinrich (məʊˈhæmɛd ʤæłɔh) yeah! Audios can be quite deceiving!

[@mohammedjalloh7658]

King Libra what did you think it was?

[@haitangweiyu]

Wow, Frisian sounds good... Anyways, I only got that the third one was related to Italy orz.

[@antoin2189]

mwen ka pale anglè, espanyòl, fransè ak kreyòl ayisyen. mwen renmen videos ou. mèsi! 😀

[@toumyaccida4101]

I am Haitian i speak italian, french, Haitian, portuguese, English, spanish

What it thought: 1: Any french based creole language 2: Frisian 3: Sardinian

[@arielp7582]

What is that country ball in your profile pic?

[@simonfrederiksen104]

@@arielp7582 That would be Brittany en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittany

[@thejamesthird]

2/3 1. I guessed it was a french creole. 2. I am Dutch/British and have family there. I knew it was west Friesian. 3. Romanian? was totally wrong. Having grown up speaking Dutch and English Fluently it is strange hearing and reading West Friesian, as I can completely understand it all. I can't however speak it. The vocab is very similar to english only its said with dutch phonics.

[@dustinw1391]

The third one was still a Romance language so good job. Lmao

[@tomaszantochow8391]

I've grown up with Dutch aswell and well, I speak English decently, even if I so say myself. I can never figure Frisian out though. The way they pronounce stuff definitely sounds Dutch, but I can never guess what the vocab means.

[@austindrake4937]

I also got 2/3, but I missed Frisian. I'm a native English speaker, but nothing sounded familiar. I thought it sounded like what I imagine Estonian sounds like.

[@vickyx09]

I don't know how you guessed Romanian. it's just so goddamn different!

[@vickyx09]

***** Dude, I don't know Greek. I just write my name in Greek because, you know, I want to be anonymous on the internet. Tho I know how to read Greek.

[@kallelellacevej2234]

This was really fun Paul! ☺ 1. I thought it was French as I took a month of it in School & I knew you spoke French. When the text came on screen with the Ws and Ks, I knew it was a creole (but not sure of which one). 2. I actually guessed Frisian! 😁I speak English, German & natively Swedish. Frisian just sounds like old English and Dutch had a baby. I've never seen Frisian writing before though! 3. At first I thought it was something slavic. Latin languages have always seemed very weird to me & have a unique sound to them. I heard this towards the end of the clip. Those beefy words & the 'NON' assured to me it was a latin language. I combined them to guess Romanian. Even though I only got one, I think I did well at getting close. ☺I look forward to more of these challenges. Great jobb Paul! 😃

[@Golderpe]

Please more videos like this one :). Very nice channel!

[@Langfocus]

Thanks, I'm glad you like it!

[@odotawaissaku3755]

1) Mayan (cuz I thought I heard ejectives, so I guessed) 2) Frisian (it sounded almost norse, but I knew it wasn't Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, or Faroese) 3) Sardinian (it sounded similar to Italian, and the written had "sardu" in it)

[@rzeka]

I heard the ejective too, and guessed Amharic

[@cicero1178]

+rzeka What is ejective

[@xXSlick_JimmyXx]

+Nostradamus An ejective is a consonant that briefly stops or clicks. There's a chart of different ejective sounds in the Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejective_consonant . They're characteristic of South African, Native American, and Kartvelian languages, hence Γαλεας guessed Mayan for the first one.

[@cicero1178]

***** Ah thanks!

[@venancefortunat2783]

Sardinian is an verrrry old Romance Language!

[@LuvBugBlaqkHart]

I didn't know all of the languages but I was able to deduce what regions they were from pretty easily. I love these guessing videos! Please do more ♡

[@HelloWorld1947]

I failed all of them. I had no idea what any of those languages were! I knew the first had some French in it but couldn't figure it out. I initially thought it might be Afrikaans. I can't wait for you to do Ge'ez language. If you ever do i hope you do it accurately.

[@Alcofribas83]

Afrikaans doesn't actually have any French in it IIRC. :)

[@jide5342]

you beautiful ethiopian. please marry me!!!

[@CommeUnFrancais]

Afrikaans is based off of Dutch lol

[@HelloWorld1947]

Calm down, people. I know Afrikaans is Dutch mixture. That is why i said, "Initially i thought."

[@jide5342]

Aksum አክሱም ፣ ንግሥት marry me

[@Unlickdbearwhlp]

I guessed Haitian creole! The second sounded Germanic, and when I saw it written I took a wild guess with Frisian, only because it was in the last sentence. ^_- Sardinian sounds closer to Portuguese, but looks Italian.

[@TransportGeekery]

1. Creole - I recognised the French, but not the specific creole (My mother is Mauritian and speaks Mauritian Creole) 2. I thought it was Afrikaans! The "poetry" of the dialog was quite like Afrikaans - I think Afrikaans is considered "old fashioned" Dutch, and I guess Frisian may well be viewed similarly, even though it's a separate language 3. On hearing, I was thinking a Portguese creole given the first example, so maybe Papiamentu (although isn't that Spanish-based?), but recognised the word "sardu" in the text so guess Sardinian.

[@Dylems]

Afrikaans is the language speaken by die antwoord right ?

[@somerandomperson8518]

1)Afrikaans/Baltic, then realised i screwed up 2)Frisian: English, but a little leaning towards Dutch in sound and written word 3)Italian or some Romantic language:Not sure if Italian or Sardinian result: just passed lmao

[@EyjannaSonur]

I was all focused and ready to guess the third one (I correctly guessed that the first one was a french creole and the second some Dutch related one). And then...well I'll be damned, it was just my mother tongue. Now that's something you don't hear often on youtube. A kent'annos Paul!

[@beatrizmontenario5123]

Would love if this type of videos become a series at tour channel! Following from Brazil ♡

[@guidoylosfreaks]

I got the three of them when I saw them written.

[@roland2715]

You Smart!

[@Gumardee_coins_and_banknotes]

Or lying.

[@benoitbvg2888]

Same here, got the "moi pas parlé anglais" part (being french speaker), then it was "Fryslan" in the second text and last one "sardu". Not too hard.

[@rovi3833]

1.Haitian Creole 2. Afrikaans 3. Sardinian

[@jordillach3222]

Number two is wrong. I also thought it was Afrikaans :-)

[@Feirin332]

I'm Afrikaans and it sounded like Dutch mixed with Norwegian to me ;-)

[@myowncomputerstuff]

I thought I heard some Slavic phonemes in the Frisian audio with the "volproye/волпрое" sound at 3:32 and "persholnok/першёлнок" at 3:40

[@joehoe222]

It was an old speaker. That made it a bit tougher. And even in Frisian you have a wide variety of dialects, so no surprise ;). Modern Frisian is a bit less Nordic sounding, but more Dutch sounding.

[@TyrkiaGunnar]

I'm a Norwegian. For me it sounded like Afrikaans :-) Maybe Frisian sounds like Norwegian for some of you, but for me (as a Norwegian) this wasn't easier to understand than Dutch or German.

[@juancarlosacunahinojosa4632]

I recognized the Haitian Creole because there are many Haitian immigrants living near my workplace in Santiago, Chile ... thanks for another great video!

[@Spinna720]

got all right

[@Langfocus]

Well done!

[@Spinna720]

Langfocus I knew them because in the first one it said words that sound french, in the second one it said Frysle which I think means Frisian and in the third one my native language is spanish so I could figure it out easily

[@israellai]

yeah "Frysle" kinda gave it away!

[@allanrichardson1468]

I figured right away from the rhythm, which is more accented than Spanish, that the third one would be either Italian or Romanian (which some linguists say is closer to ancient vulgar Latin than Italian is), and I was convinced it was Romanian when I saw the spellings ending in "u." Turned out I was wrong there. I have heard and seen Romanian but not Sardinian (or Sicilian or any other "dialect of Italian" spoken in Italy). The second one sounded vaguely Germanic, but that is a very broad category. Seeing what looked like "Norwegian" as the last word of the written sample misled me into thinking Norwegian, but at least I didn't fall for the obvious, modern German. Frisian was a good choice for an example; some people claim that native speakers of Frisian can read Beowulf and other Anglo-Saxon texts as easily as we modern English speakers can read Shakespeare. Certainly Friesland is close to the area from which the Angles, Saxons and Jutes came. The first one I thought might be Portuguese from the oral recording, but the written text was obviously Haitian Creole, which I have seen in multilingual signs in public buildings (the ones with over a dozen translations of the "if you need a translator, point to this paragraph and we will find one for you" message), and my general impression from those signs was "phonetically spelled French," so I recognized the written samples. Good choices for the quiz! For a future video, try Yiddish or Ladino; just when the viewer thinks this is some weird form of German or Spanish, show them written with Hebrew letters and blow their minds! In both cases, the Jews had to learn to SPEAK the Gentile tongue of their host country, but refused to use those hated "Christian" letters when writing to one another. Or try to tell Serbian from Croatian in speech (almost the same) and in writing (Cyrillic vs Latin alphabet), or Hindi from Urdu. I understand you have already done a video on the latter pair.

[@catman6435]

My first guess for the first one was Portuguese too, and also Romanian for the third, it was clearly a Romance language but it obviously wasn't French or Spanish or Italian.

[@arynees]

1) a romance language close to french, i do know a little french, and i could tell that this is not french...but a romance language thats very close 2) frisian, with my recent knowlage of german, i could tell right away its one of the germanic languages, but not german, i knew it was frisian because i was pretty sure the writing script isnt scandanavian, icelandic or dutch...so i guessed the only other germanic language i heard of...frisian 3) a romance related to spanish...i cannot differenciate between italian, spanish and portugues..

[@viktorbijdezee4741]

abdelrahman s Good thoughts!

[@skitt42]

When I worked in a retirement plan call center years ago I had a person call in who spoke what sounded like French and no English at all. I got dialed in a French translator but she had no clue what he was saying. He kept saying what sounded like "ah ee tee" and finally it clicked that he was speaking Haitian Creole and I was able to get an appropriate translator for him. I'm so proud I was able to help him and made notes in his file as to what kind of translator he needed because I doubted my coworkers would have figured it out! I still didn't guess correctly for your video though :)

[@BATMAN-gh1nf]

Hi, I just discovered your site. Very interesting and nicely presented.

[@Langfocus]

Thank you!

[@flowerflojo5]

1. French based language 2. finnish 3. portuguese/ someting related to italian

[@sutanpuu]

2: I am from finland and can say that it does not even remotely sound like finnish. The closest langauge resembling finnish is estonian

[@marksmith8079]

The second one has strong germanic influences- easy to tell it is not German.

[@manetho5134]

Saame but the second one I thought was a Scandinavian language like Swedish, Danish or Norwegian

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

With the second I directly thought about something Dutch-related. Finnish is not even close to that.

[@ravinmarokef]

Pretty much what I thought too

[@lindafederico-degeest3589]

Ah...what an enticing challenge! I think I'm such a hot shot in recognizing at least Latin-based tongues, but hearing these more obscure languages is helping wake up my tired old brain cells. Mil gracias!

[@latinmonsieur]

I only got 1 right, but I knew the second one was a nordic language and that the 3rd one was a latin derivation

[@tomaszantochow8391]

The 2nd language is not a nordic language. It's West Germanic. It's closely related to Old English and Old Dutch.

[@ChristianFS1]

that's true, frisian's technically west-germanic, but as a dane i thought i could understand parts of it (in a very broad, vague sense), even though it's not a north germanic language. i thought it was icelandic or old norse before i saw the written sample!

[@tomaszantochow8391]

Christian Sand That's probably because Frisian is also pretty close to Danish. I mean, you have Frisia too, right? Frisia was a kingdom all along the coast of modern day germany, netherlands and denmark.

[@ChristianFS1]

that's true, frisia used to stretch into and share borders with areas that are now danish IIRC, at least prior to 1864. but we're not taught about frisia or the frisian language in school if that's what you mean, we only get to learn german, sadly. the only reason i know about frisian is because i got curious.

[@Excaliburhope]

DO Elvish too!

[@Langfocus]

That's from Lord of the Rings, right?

[@9d8fb79fd8gb]

yes

[@Excaliburhope]

Langfocus Yup

[@OsefKincaid]

Funnily enough you could do elvish if you wanted. It's a completely formed language, Tolkien put a lot of work into it.

[@douchenozzle4484]

You could also do Klingon and Dovahzul

[@davideconedera9521]

My guesses: -Haitian Creole: I heard sounds and words similar to French -Frisian: I recognised a Germanic language very akin to English also for the sounds -Sardinian: I'm Italian so I noticed that it had Romance sounds and words, the accent was obviously the Sardinian one and I noticed the words "su, sa" which are the Sardinian articles

[@Vazgen_Ghazaryan]

Frisian is so amazingly beautiful.

[@l2516]

Vazgen Ghazaryan dankjewo, thank you! 🥰

[@deanneelsen1882]

For the first one I thought it was French the second one Swedish and the third one Portuguese 😤

[@Langfocus]

Those are all in the ballpark.

[@Langfocus]

+Stanley Dougé. Yes, I know. :)

[@TyrkiaGunnar]

I cannot understand how anybody could even think that this was Swedish! It doesn't sound Swedish at all. (I'm a native Norwegian speaker, and Swedish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible languages.)

[@hectora.peniche6706]

Hey pal, i choose the same that you, only i think that thought that the second was norwegian.

[@FishcatGames]

I thought French, Norwegian, and Portuguese :(

[@erwinj9697]

1: French based language from a country in Africa I'd guess. 2: My mother tongue Frisian 3: Sounds like an Italian related language

[@baevus]

1. finnish 2. dutch or a scandanavian language 3. maltese :s kinda similar

[@AndrishhRS]

Finnish haha

[@AbsoluteMalarkey]

2 and 3 were close, but 1 was way off!

[@Ignoscis]

Finnish sounds nothing like that lol

[@MsMimo07]

wow I thought i was the only one who guessed that the first language was finish^^ i have no idea why and it doesnt make a lot of sense to be honest.

[@daniiiba2633]

At first I thought the second one was Afrikaans, because as a Dutch speaker, I could understand it very well. Then I saw how it was written and knew it was Frisian. The first one I knew was a French creole, but didn't know specifically that it was Haitian. And the last one was obviously a form of Italian, at least for me.

[@mrmapperil8144]

I guessed Frisian and I was like yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[@Langfocus]

Nice one!

[@thiantromp6607]

+Langfocus I could understand it....

[@gauravradioactive]

I love the series of Mystery Languages and I am very eager to see such videos. Please keep uploading. Thanks a lot.

[@LightningGlass]

Two for three. I thought the second one was Breton, because it sounded a little Celtic.

[@LightningGlass]

I guessed the first was Haitian Creole; because I recognized the relation to French and there were African phonological traits evident. I've also heard it before. I guessed the third was Sardinian because it was obviously close to Italian, but different enough to have to be another language I knew of that was even more closely related to Latin.

[@emile8197]

haha, I also thought the second one sounded a bit Celtic.

[@fernandaroig2964]

The first one has to be related to french somehow

[@fernandaroig2964]

I KNEW IT LOL

[@jota7r]

Native spanish speaker here. French was the first language that came to my mind when the haitian creole audio started. As for the sardinian language I thought it was related to portuguese. Spanish and english are the only languages I understand. I don't speak portuguese and I definitely don't understand french. I just wanted to share my impressions as a romance language native :)

[@HyukBurgersTV]

lol you should do one of these but with languages i've actually even heard of 😂

[@sage7296]

ScreamToASigh I didn't know Frisian and Sardinia I just guessed Dutch and Italian.

[@SimHarrison]

OMG I freaked out when I got the first one right!!

[@SimHarrison]

I got the second one too!! I guessed Corsican on the last one, so close...

[@nongthip]

I used to tune into a Friesian language radio station when I lived in northwestern Germany, and if you just let your mind go can almost imagine an old sort of Germanic variety of "English". Love this stuff, keep it coming 😂

[@shibro33]

funny how the first one sound more like canadian french than french

[@iandrsaurri625]

Frisian sounded like English but i couldn't a word

[@phinaibe8434]

Ian Drsaurri I could a word.

[@Madeline64]

Yay as a French speaker I was so excited to see you talk about creole !

[@fernandaroig2964]

Last is sardinian?

[@fernandaroig2964]

OH YAS

[@konplayz]

I guessed Sicilian. c:

[@robespierrey]

The daughter is talking with her mother. She said the best happened to her mother after got married was that she gave birth to her and her twin, then the mother answered that she was a good girl (when she was a child), but the daughter then said that her mother's marriage was a happy one too and the mother agreed.

[@1992rmaw]

moi in French is not an object pronoun- it is a tonic pronoun, while je being atonic.

[@Langfocus]

+1992rmaw Yes, that's right. I misspoke in the video.

[@67spulp]

to be precise, moi is tonic for all cases, je is atonic for the subject (similarly, "me" is the non tonic form for the object)

[@1992rmaw]

to be precise, you're right.

[@12061988]

What about gin tonic??

[@hobermallow2000]

1. French based 2. Scandinavian, way north 3. Sardinian. I'm sardinian and this is a particular dialect of the south part called Campidanese. Sardinian shares more with latin and spanish then italian. It varies very much from region to region at a point it's hard to even understand eachother. Thanks for the video !

[@juvnal]

for later: Haitian Creole Greek Occitan

[@lanafan211]

That old woman in the third clip sounded like the dude from Lord of the Rings...

[@whiskeysk]

1. guessed some Carribean Creole based on the obvious French vocabulary, but wouldn't be able to be nail it down as specifically Haitian 2. Sounded Dutch related, towards the end almost Afrikaans, but when seeing it written it was easy Frisian. 3. Was clearly related to Italian, but couldn't decide. After seeing it written I said Corsican. Close enough I guess :) Keep them coming!

[@michael-mitch-lewis467]

I believe *moun* comes from the Bantu spectrum of words for person, things like *umuntu* (Zulu) or *moto* (Lingala).

[@maitaimik]

Disagree - Bantu and Zulu are South African languages but most Haitian slaves came from West Africa. Moun is a diminutive of the french - du monde - dimoun- moun.

[@olivieranceschi4118]

I thought Frisian was Afrikaan and Sardu was Napoletano....not bad hey?

[@Langfocus]

Pretty close!

[@mihaic9877]

1 - Some French based language from Africa 2 - Old English? After seeing the text maybe some northern Germanic language like Danish/Norwegian 3 - An Italian language, could not pinpoint one though

[@jeshgamer8717]

Sardinian?

[@jeshgamer8717]

yikes! i got it right

[@RifqiPriyo]

My guesses were: 1) from Europe 2) from Europe 3) from Europe LOL

[@born_supreme]

I guessed Haitian Creole, because it sounded French, but African at the same time, and mwen was the dead give away. I like these videos, man. Big ups!

[@cosminpanta4035]

Sardinian sounds like portuguese

[@alessandro_natali]

Not all varieties. The southern ones, yes, sometimes. Northern or central Sardinian it's quite difficult to place actually. You should watch a video on wikitongues' there's a guy speaking Nuorese Sardinian which is totally different.

[@pino2483]

@@alessandro_natali io non so quale sardo conosci ma soprattutto il campidanese si differenzia molto dall' portoghese o spagnolo ,almeno molto di più del sardo dei gabbini

[@pino2483]

Però li cambia molto da paese a paese ,io da monastirese non capisco nulla neanche di un serrentese

[@gaetanchenu5292]

Okay in French dude, ALWAYS put the "ne" or "n' " in french negation!

[@Langfocus]

Do you mean in written French? Native speakers often leave out the "n" or "n'" and just say "pas".

[@gaetanchenu5292]

Yes, we don't say it at the oral form but it's a grammar mistake: we should always say it but we don't xD

[@santiagochauprincipe4885]

it's just the informal form of the negation. I mean in everyday speaking you could say: Je ne sais pas; Je sais pas; Je ne sais

[@hamstrungharry259]

'suis comprends pas.

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

Chais pas Gaetan, chui pas si sûr.

[@TheDiamondBladeHD]

1. Creole 2. Frisian/Old nord germanic 3. Romansh, the one they speak in Switzerland

[@TheDen-ec9xe]

After seeing a couple of videos, I've subscribed instantly to your channel. 1) The first I immediately recognized some French, but it felt off due to some words. The answer was flabbergasting, to say the least 2) I went for Scandinavian - Germanic Language, like a mix of Dutch and Danish/Swedish. Basically, Frisian is like modern Old English. 3) This last one.......I can't help but feel at home :D ......... Almost. Actually, talking about one Sardinian Language is incorrect, as Sardinia is said to be "more of a continent than an Island". There are so many different variations and inner languages. For example, Algherese is a form of ancient Catalan. Or Sassarese is a mix of Logudorese Sardinian, Tuscan dialect and many Spanish elements. Of course, Italian is still the official Language in Sardinia, but the dialects and inner languages are still spoken among the elderly or people in villages of the innermost Sardinia. Even I had some trouble recognizing which kind of Sardinian this one was, being a Sassarese. I am tempted to say Campidanese Sardinian, the general variant spoken in the Southern part of Sardinia, as opposed to Logudorese Sardinian. Fantastic video. See ya next time, arrivederci al prossimo video e a videzzi ! ;) P.s. : If one day you'll happen to do a video on Sardinian languages and dialects, I'd be more than happy to help.

[@Jliske2]

1. Haitian Creole -- I got it right!!! 2. Frisian -- while my first guess was Faroese, I recognized it as Frisian a moment before it was revealed. 3. Sardinian -- SO CLOSE! I guessed Monegasque.

[@JeanLoupRSmith]

As a French speaker Creole was easy to pick out. It's worth noting that in colloquial French (at least the one I grew up with) "T'es pas cap" means "Betcha can't" so it's interesting to see some parallels here. Frisian was a wild guess but that's mostly because the written text mentioned it and it definitely wasn't Norwegian I got Sardinian too because it's close to Italian but not close enough to French to be Corsican. Fun videos Paul, I enjoyed that :)

[@arallech]

Wow! You are amazing in languages! I just can't stop watching those guessing videos, lol! I love languages, and let's say your videos are the best about it, being very complete, bringing History and etc. Thank you!!!

[@giacomocorvi7896]

1. Haitian Creole (thanks to your video on the subject) 2. Faroese 3. A language from Italy, Sardinian

[@xxxxx2084]

My guesses: 1)Haitian Creole - picked up that it was French sounding and the only creole i know2)Norwegian- sounded Scandinavian but I knew it wasn’t Swedish 3)Portuguese- knew it wasn’t Italian or Spanish but sounded romance.

[@nickanand8087]

1. Got Haitian Creole, due to the heavy amount of french words. I was a little freaked out initially that I wasn't able to understand it. 2. Easily recognized as germanic language. Only recognized as Frisian when written form shown. 3. Easily recognized as romance language. Only recognized as Sardinian in written form.

[@allanmacbadger5692]

No1. I guessed as modified French. No2 I guessed as Dutch and No3 I guessed as Italian based. I used to find it difficult to distinguise between Dutch and German, but having worked with Dutch peoeple and travelled frequently to our Amsterdam offices the best clue is the Dutch letters G and H and how they are pronouced very hard.

[@gusjohnnson9641]

1. I guessed French, then saw it written and knew it was not French. I assumed that it might have been a French-based African language. 2. I guessed Polish, because it sounded Germanic, yet somewhat Slavic. 3. I guessed some low Italian dialect. Looks like I was somewhat close! This was fun, thanks for the video.

[@YBRIS4036]

I was amazed when I heard the sardinian language!!! In the specific the variety in which the two women spoke in the registration is a dialect of the south, probably from the region called Ogliastra (Ollastra in Sardinian) the three written phases are from the north variety, the more conservative and the one who the most think it's the better one to choose to make a "standard" sardinian language

[@jdelts]

I guessed, Haitian Creole correct, then Dutch and an Italian “dialect”. The reason I came so close on the last two, was simply from watching your videos!

[@ambermarie211]

My guesses were - 1. An African language with French influence from possible colonization 2. Frisian 3. Some language from an island off Italy I love this series!

[@senesterium]

3/3, mostly thanks to your channel and Nativelang. I'm so proud !

[@Langfocus]

Nicely done! 👍🏻

[@clairealyese4326]

1) Haitian; sounded like French with another influence 2)Scotts; it obviously didn't have the accent but I could tell it sounded like English and wasn't Nordic or Dutch 3) Catalan; I could tell it was romance but it wasn't one of the big ones. The first one I thought of was Catalan. I'm a native English speaker and that's the only langauge I'm fluent in

[@bwalle]

Loved it!!! We want more! I thought the first was definitely French influenced and kept thinking African influence, maybe even French Guiana, New a World. The second I knew was some form of Dutch and guessed it might be Flemish? The last was definitely Italian-like and I guessed it correctly!

[@adamdfc9809]

My Guesses: 1. Haitian Creole (It sounds like french obviously but has an african phonetic sound) 2. West Frisian (Now this one confuses me because it kind of sounds like a Anglo-Frisian language but also as a North Germanic Language?) 3. Portuguese (More specifically Brazilian Portuguese? I have not studied portuguese before but this language sounds very similar if not the same portuguese) . I hope I did well....