Need help IDing a language

CareWere

I had a very interesting experience tonight. I sat amongst four very attractive girls of an origin very different from my own. They spoke english 90 percent of the time but then they obviously spoke the same language at one point. What's interesting though, is that they all look like they could be of complete different nationalities (to my completely unworldy, ignorant eye). I hate to stereotype; I really hate it, but from the vantage point of your average American that has only left the U.S. once to go to Canada but is not xenophobic in any way, could you guys help me?

So here's the deal: one of the girls looked Asian to the point of being from a people that speaks Mandarin. Two looked like they could be a number of Middle Eastern nationalities. One looked sort of like a Romanian malaysian.

So what language might they have been speaking? Yes I admit I am ignorant, but I am so glad to have witnessed confirmation that people lie along one big beautiful spectrum and that nationality and borders don't mean much.

Gorgeeen

Ask them or describe to us the speech patterns. Did they use Ls

CareWere

I'll try to describe it. The level of abrasive sounds was very moderate, as in right in between. The syllables seemed to flow at a slightly faster than moderate rate. You know the way sometimes Japanese speaking people elongate words at the end of their sentences? Yeah there was none of that. I'll keep thinking.

:whistle:

Cryogen

This is going to be a very difficult thread without some language samples or pictures of the people, which i assume are both going to be impossible or close to. Also because even if someone gets it right, how will you know?

Having said that, my first thought was Cambodian (and thus speaking Khmer) as the population can vary quite widely in appearance from typical Chinese through to Thai, Filipino, and then the rural peoples can by quite dark-skinned with what i found to be a pretty unique appearance. But your 'middle eastern' description doesnt really mesh in my mind.

CareWere

Thanks for trying. When I say middle eastern, honestly I want to say Indian. Again, I may not be that cultured. Other factors that may help would be that I live in a southeastern state of the U.S. (ok it's South Carolina, yeah we started the civil war yeeeehaw) where apparently there are enough people speaking this language that there is a tight-knit community where one of them's english was not that great, and 3/4 of them have pretty strong accents even though I feel they have been here for the majority of their life. Then again, she might have gotten here later. She was also the most friendly with me. She was the Romanian malaysian if you will.

In a way I will be glad if this is impossible to solve. Maybe I just need a place to spam about my great experiences recently with these superhot girls with incredibly tiny hands. Knowing what language they were speaking might help. I don't want to get banned though, and I've been told Social Entropy doesn't care about what happens to me or how I feel.

CareWere

This is my guess so far.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_language

Cryogen

Its a fair guess. There is a fair contingent of population in Malaysia of Indian descent, as well as of Chinese descent, so you could well be solving your own thread there.

poshniallo

Could have been Tagalog. Phillipinos are pretty racially/genetically/ohgodIdon'tknowtheword diverse.

Zeon

poshniallo wrote: »

Could have been Tagalog. Phillipinos are pretty racially/genetically/ohgodIdon'tknowtheword diverse.

Yeah thatd be my guess. Theres a bunch of Phillipino people at my workplace, they all look fairly different, yet they all speak Tagalog. If any of these girls looked latin at all, thats probably the answer.

Other than that, if they look like maybe theyre from the other side of that continent, my guess would have to be Urdu. Most people from India/Pakistan are able to speak that language, and they as well can look fairly diverse.

But without audio samples, its almost impossible.

Heres a question, why not ask them? They probably wont say "Fuck off whiteboy".

Octoparrot

Malay i'm not familiar with. You'll hear an odd spanish word every now and then in tagalog. It's fast, but not really any abrasive sounds.

What kind of enunciation was there? Dropping and raising of pitch?

"The level of abrasive sounds was very moderate, as in right in between. The syllables seemed to flow at a slightly faster than moderate rate. You know the way sometimes Japanese speaking people elongate words at the end of their sentences? Yeah there was none of that."