Please identify the language

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby Osias » 2016-10-26, 23:44

There's a part that sounds like English "I want you to ganga style". :D
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Re: Help discovering the language (and the lyrics) of this audio clip ("filament" by Yousei Teikoku)

Postby Vlürch » 2016-10-27, 3:16

NTxC wrote:I'm determined to discover the language (and lyrics) of a specific fragment in a song, "filament" by Yousei Teikoku.

I think it's Latin, but the distortion makes it really hard to make out; the last thing sounds like "dies irae", which means "day of wrath". If it is Latin, the beginning could something like "e ???? quod est pullarum", meaning "from ???? that are dark", but grammatically incorrect; it should be "quae sunt pullarum" and, actually, it sounds like it could be that even though I keep hearing it more like the former. On the other hand, it could be English, in which case all I can hear is "if I was as cool as you, Poland, I want you to follow this fart. Did you see that?"

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-10-27, 3:35

It honestly reminds me of regional languages in Italy, especially southern Italy. It does sound like it's sung with a bit of a Japanese accent, though.

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby Vlürch » 2016-10-27, 4:20

vijayjohn wrote:It honestly reminds me of regional languages in Italy, especially southern Italy. It does sound like it's sung with a bit of a Japanese accent, though.

Yeah, the Japanese accent is a thing that sometimes leads to hilariously misheard lyrics. Anyway, I kept listening to it and the vowel before the word that starts with [p] sounds like it might be slightly nasalised. If it's [ɯ̃], then that word is [sɯ̃], which could be a Japanese pronunciation of "sunt". The word before that, though, especially slowed down, sounds like [kɯɾei̯~kɯɾeː] and I just can't imagine it being "quae" even with the Japanesiest Japanese accent ever; not "quod", either, unless the [ei̯~eː] is part of the next word, in which case it would be "quod est", not "quae sunt"... but the last part sounds so much like "dies irae" that I still think it is that. Maybe only that part is Latin, and the rest is English or even just Japanese?

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-10-27, 5:42

It doesn't sound to me like any of the three, but then again, I'm not exactly confident about how well I can identify a language from listening to it given that the last video posted on this thread turned out to be in Brazilian Portuguese, which I probably should be able to understand in principle. :P

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby Vlürch » 2016-10-27, 7:22

vijayjohn wrote:It doesn't sound to me like any of the three, but then again, I'm not exactly confident about how well I can identify a language from listening to it given that the last video posted on this thread turned out to be in Brazilian Portuguese, which I probably should be able to understand in principle. :P

The Collective Brazilian Portuguese Recognition Failure will be remembered in the 29th century as one of the turning points of the 21st century... :para:

Also, what language is the tattoo on this model's leg and what does it mean? NSFW-ish, I guess, even though not really. It's in the Arabic script, and I'd think it's Uyghur or Ottoman Turkish because it has ڭ, but the last word looks like "لحبیبي" so that would point to it being Arabic since it even has the preposition, and the second word has some letter that looks like م but has a line (or dots?) under it that I'm not familiar with. The first word is clearly "نا", which generally negates something but since I have no idea what the second word is or if the third word is actually "لحبیبي", so... any idea?

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby voron » 2016-10-27, 8:11

It looks like butchered Arabic:
انا ملك لحبيبى
I am a property of my beloved.

The dash under م looks like a kasra, but it should not be there, the word is 'mulk (un)'.

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby NTxC » 2016-10-27, 8:37

Wow, I can't believe I actually found a place where people try to help me out with this fragment!

Osias, Vlürch, vijayjohn, I really appreciate your insight and expertise.

I also would like to make it perfectly clear that I do have hobbies... :D I just HAVE to find out these lyrics!

Vlürch wrote:the last thing sounds like "dies irae", which means "day of wrath". If it is Latin, the beginning could something like "e ???? quod est pullarum", meaning "from ???? that are dark", but grammatically incorrect; it should be "quae sunt pullarum" and, actually, it sounds like it could be that even though I keep hearing it more like the former.

Holy moly, I think you might be onto something here! This song was created specifically as an ending song for an anime series named The Future Diary and it is about becoming a god and the anime is pretty dark itself too.

It's amazing to me how much "dies irae" makes sense to me, considering I've been looking for these lyrics for months now and listening to this fragment repeatedly. I tried my best over time to come up with improvised lyrics and I came up with these:
"efari se kuei su paleru aredu rewo respa ti dia sira"
and the ending does sound like "dies irae" a lot. Also, "quae sunt pullarum" also sounds like you just hit the jackpot here!

Let's dig into this further so I can sleep at night! Haha.

The fragment was recorded in studio twice. The first recording is in the left stereo channel, and the second recording is played through the right channel and that's why simple vocal removal doesn't work with it (voice differs in left/right channels).

Now, Yui-sama (the singer) sings this in live performances as well. There are two on YouTube, and you can actually hear her without the distortion.
First one: two instances of the fragment, one between 0:39 - 0:51 and one between 2:01 - 2:13
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71SDJjfa3mQ&t=0m39s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71SDJjfa3mQ&t=2m01s

Second performance: two instances again, 0:16 - 0:28 and 1:38 - 1:50:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eceQC_Ybtmo&t=0m16s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eceQC_Ybtmo&t=1m38s
(This one has lyrics for this fragment on-screen but they seem to be just made up)

Reposting the acapella version for convenience:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiEKveNBMzY

What do you think?

Patrick

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-10-27, 11:58

I haven't listened to those clips you just posted yet, but I really don't think this is Latin, sorry. I'm sticking with my southern Italian guess for now. :P (Though note that not all minority languages in southern Italy are varieties of Italian. It could be Griko, for instance).

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby IpseDixit » 2016-10-27, 12:51

vijayjohn wrote:I haven't listened to those clips you just posted yet, but I really don't think this is Latin, sorry. I'm sticking with my southern Italian guess for now. :P (Though note that not all minority languages in southern Italy are varieties of Italian. It could be Griko, for instance).


I can't make out not even one single word so I doubt it's a southern Italian dialect. I also don't think it's Griko, it doesn't sound like it to me and moreover, a Japanese band that sings in a nearly unknown language spoken in a few villages in Southern Italy? That would be bizarre to say the least.

And if it's Latin, it's the most mangled pronunciation I've ever heard.

NTxC wrote:and the ending does sound like "dies irae" a lot.


I'm sorry but it doesn't. Dies irae is supposed to be pronounced [ˈdies ˈire] or if you don't know IPA, DEE-ehs EE-reh.

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby Osias » 2016-10-27, 14:23

The more I listen to the fragment, the more I'm convinced that's a mix between Japanese and English, like we sometimes here mix Portugese in verbs like "eu understando". To me it sounds like "if I [japanese words] you, [japanese words]. I want you to [japanese word] star, [japanese words]"
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Re: Please identify the language

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-10-28, 0:38

I'm kind of tempted to think it could be some Ryukyuan language.
IpseDixit wrote:a Japanese band that sings in a nearly unknown language spoken in a few villages in Southern Italy? That would be bizarre to say the least.

I dunno, obscure songs and songs in rather obscure languages have suddenly risen to prominence out of nowhere a number of times already. A few months ago, somebody posted a K-pop song with lines (and part of the tune) taken out of some random, seemingly obscure Punjabi folk song. There's also "Yé ké yé ké" in Mandinka and Afric Simone's songs with lyrics in a mixture of mostly Bantu languages. Just a thought, though.
I'm sorry but it doesn't. Dies irae is supposed to be pronounced [ˈdies ˈire] or if you don't know IPA, DEE-ehs EE-reh.

There's no single pronunciation standard for Latin, so there isn't really any "one correct" way of pronouncing it. For example, the Oxford pronunciation standard would probably be something like [ˈdiʔeːs ˈiːraj] since although /ei/ was a valid diphthong in Latin, /ie/ was not.

But yeah, I still don't think it's Latin.

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby OyVey » 2016-10-28, 17:02

With a glottal stop?
Avatar by gill from Glasgow, uk (oy vey!) CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-10-28, 17:34

I think so. Otherwise, it would appear to be a diphthong, wouldn't it? I've definitely also heard of pronunciations with a glottal stop being promoted as more historically accurate for this or similar reasons. I remember when my brother was taking Latin at the University of Texas and was taught to pronounce via as [ˈwɪʔa], for example.

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby OyVey » 2016-10-28, 17:55

Like this?
a.ogg

I did each of them without a glottal stop, and then with.
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Re: Please identify the language

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-10-28, 18:07

Yep! That sounds about right.

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby Vlürch » 2016-10-28, 22:28

voron wrote:It looks like butchered Arabic:
انا ملك لحبيبى
I am a property of my beloved.

The dash under م looks like a kasra, but it should not be there, the word is 'mulk (un)'.

But what about the three dots on the ك? I mean, obviously people get tattoos that have misspellings and whatnot in them, but I feel like dropping the ا, adding something under the م and three dots on the ك seems a bit too much to be an accident considering the fact that ڭ is an actual letter. You're probably right, though.
IpseDixit wrote:And if it's Latin, it's the most mangled pronunciation I've ever heard.

Japanese pronunciations of other languages tend to be really, really mangled. I mean, even English gets pretty badly butchered: this song is in English and the lyrics are hilarious, as is this with lyrics from the letter Albert Fish wrote to one of his victims' parents. This is also mostly in English. Also, this is almost entirely in English; the vocals start at 2:22.
vijayjohn wrote:I dunno, obscure songs and songs in rather obscure languages have suddenly risen to prominence out of nowhere a number of times already.

Latin has always been used as an "obscure dark language" by the Japanese, though, which is why I still think it's Latin. I can't think of any songs with even one line of Latin off the top of my head, but Dum Spiro Spero is an album by Dir en grey; IIRC there isn't actually any Latin in any of the songs, though.

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby Llawygath » 2016-10-28, 23:04

vijayjohn wrote:I think so. Otherwise, it would appear to be a diphthong, wouldn't it?

I don't know much about Latin, but why couldn't it just be hiatus?

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-10-28, 23:18

Llawygath wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:I think so. Otherwise, it would appear to be a diphthong, wouldn't it?

I don't know much about Latin, but why couldn't it just be hiatus?

I'm not sure Latin allows hiatus in general, but who knows.

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Re: Please identify the language

Postby NTxC » 2016-10-29, 7:08

Lots of great answers. I want this fragment to be in Latin so bad now, given that it's the only proposed language which seems to make sense to me. Yui-sama seems to be obsessed with German, too, but it's unlikely that it is in German, right?

Vlürch wrote:Latin has always been used as an "obscure dark language" by the Japanese, though, which is why I still think it's Latin. I can't think of any songs with even one line of Latin off the top of my head, but Dum Spiro Spero is an album by Dir en grey; IIRC there isn't actually any Latin in any of the songs, though.

Here's a Japanese song with Latin lyrics, "Lilium", the opening theme of Elfen Lied. You can hear the improper pronunciation of some Latin words there, as well as legit typos in the actual lyrics:

(NSFW warning)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKG3m4uTSyw

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O quam sancta, quam serena,
quam benigma, quam amoena
O castitatis lilium


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