Please identify the language

[Vlürch]

https://disk.yandex.com/d/7L8EgRWMlUqFyw
What language could this be? May be Gypsy?

No clue, but here's a transcription of what it sounds like to my ears, ignoring length:

[gərəŋ ɑrt͡sɑin ju t͡sɑju]
[tureŋ babu]
[gərəŋ ɑrt͡sɑin ju gmorɑni]
[tureŋ babu]
[gərəŋ ɑrt͡sɑin ju t͡sɑ] - cuts off
[t͡sureŋ baʋu]
[gərəŋ ɑrt͡sɑin ju gmorɑni]
[gori rɑmɑn]
[gərɑŋ ɑnɑn məni jugrɑ]
[nɑje guru]
[nɑnɑmi kɑtiwɑ]
[kɑmpɑnijɑn]
[gərɑŋ ɑnɑn məni jugrɑ]
[nɑje guru]
[non mɑŋi kʷɑtiʋɑ]
[kompɑnijɑn]
[gərɑŋ ɑnɑn məni jugrɑ]
[nɑje guru]
[nɑn mɑni kɑtiwɑ]
[kompɑnijɑn]
[gerɑŋ ɑnɑn məni jugrɑ]
[nɑje guru]
[non mɑŋi kʷɑtiʋɑ]

All the [ə] could be [ø] or [œ] or something, but it doesn't sound (heavily) rounded to my ears. Then again, I have trouble telling apart [ø] and [ə] because Finnish /ø/ is like [ø̞̈] so it's dead between [ø] and [ə] and as such they sound like the same sound to my ears except in very clear circumstances. And the [e] and [o], I'm not sure if they're [ɛ] and [ɔ] instead or just mid [e̞] and [o̞]...

It seems like there's a (semi-)consistent difference in the lines ending in [kɑtiwɑ] and [kʷɑtiʋɑ], so maybe they're actually different but similar words? Same with that one [t͡sureŋ baʋu] sounding like it has affricated [t͡s] and approximant/fricative [ʋ~v] instead of the [t] and [b​] the otherwise identical line had.🤔

There seems to clearly be a word that's like [kɑmpɑnijɑ]~[kompɑnijɑ], possibly with an [n] at the end, the rounding seems to vary a bit but it's probably the same word every time. I doubt the similarity to campaign or company and their cognates in other languages is coincidential, but of course languages across the world have borrowed one or both of those from any number of languages so even if it is, it doesn't narrow it down much...

A possible "lead" I got a hit for on Wiktionary typing in the Latin and Cyrillic alphabet according to various orthographic conventions I'm familiar with was for [ɑrt͡sɑin], that being atzain in Basque meaning "shepherd" or "priest". According to Glosbe, Basque does also have konpainia, which if I'm not mistaken is pronounced [ko̞mpa̠ɲia̠], and also gori meaning "incadescent, passionate", as well as gerra meaning "war" (obviously a Romance loanword), so maybe that [gərɑŋ] could be that with some suffix...?

The problem with Basque, though, is that apparently it doesn't have a velar nasal and I'm pretty sure this song has a bunch of those. Maybe my assumption that they're word-final and intervocalic is also wrong, but then that'd mean it has word-initial velar nasals, which are pretty rare and would definitely mean it can't be Basque... Basque also doesn't seem to have either [w] or [v], so I'm not sure how to explain that [kɑtiwɑ] and [kʷɑtiʋɑ] stuff if it was Basque.

...and another completely different thought was Welsh, if the velar nasals are actually word-initial. But eh, I highly doubt that's what it is.

I can't be sure, but the more I listen to it, the more I feel like maybe what I hear as [gmorɑni] could actually be [kʷorɑni] or [qʷorɑni] or something like that, in which case it probably refers to the Quran? If so, maybe it could be some Caucasian language? Although I imagine it'd have a lot more sibilants and probably consonant clusters if it was... and tbh I do still hear at least like a faint [m] in any case.

I don't think it's any Turkic language, but I'm not sure. Maybe it could be a Caucasian Turkic language? I've never heard Nogay or Kumyk AFAICR, and only heard a little bit of Karachay-Balkar once IIRC, although I've assumed they're not that different from like Kazakh and whatnot since they're also Kipchak.

Armenian or Georgian also might be possible, but dunno, with at least Georgian I also imagine there'd be more consonant clusters and sibilants.

Could maybe also sound like some Austronesian or Bantu language or something, but that's probably very unlikely if it was recorded in Russia? Not that I think it's even likely from how it sounds, but... I don't know.

What really bothers me is that I could swear I've at the very least seen something written in some language that had some very similar words to what I'm hearing, I'm pretty sure even heard a song in a language that sounds so much like this... especially the [gərəŋ] and [kɑtiwɑ] stuff. I just can't put my finger on what it was.😖

Weeell, regardless of what language it is, sounds extremely beautiful and somehow haunting! I've been listening to it on loop for almost three hours, and the more I listen to it, the more I like it. It's seriously hypnotic. Almost feels cursed somehow lol.

[awrui]

https://disk.yandex.com/d/7L8EgRWMlUqFyw
What language could this be? May be Gypsy?

I can't be sure, but the more I listen to it, the more I feel like maybe what I hear as [gmorɑni] could actually be [kʷorɑni] or [qʷorɑni] or something like that, in which case it probably refers to the Quran?

You forgot one very important thing: This is a song! A pretty old one!
The words are to fit the rythm and might not be pronounced like they would be in speech. For example, German singers from that time used to trill their Rs into oblivion, which would just sound super weird if anyone talked like that. They might have connected words in places where you wouldn't when talking, to make them flow to the music.
The "ju gmorani" sounds more like "yug moranyu" to me.
"naje guru" could be "nayek uru", "na yegur u", or something else. In theory, each line could just be one single, long word...


Definitely not Bantu.

[Vlürch]

You forgot one very important thing: This is a song!

The words are to fit the rythm and might not be pronounced like they would be in speech. For example, German singers from that time used to trill their Rs into oblivion, which would just sound super weird if anyone talked like that. They might have connected words in places where you wouldn't when talking, to make them flow to the music.

Of course that's something to consider, but it also varies by language. In some languages it's less acceptable to sing differently from the speech pronunciations than in others.

For example, in Finnish one controversial topic a lot of people feel passionate about one way or another is how some singers sing in an "Americanised way", and that doesn't mean just "lazy Englishy pronunciations" or "American twang" or whatever but anything that doesn't have "perfect clarity" (it's all chucked to American influence, even if it's not always that). There are even some people who take it as far as complaining about singing diphthongs and long vowels as, well, diphthongs and long vowels instead of two separate vowels! Most don't go that far, and vowel length tends to be semi-ignored. In actual folk music people use dialectal pronunciations where it can seem like vowels and consonants get dropped entirely at random (presumably it's not random, but...) and most people probably don't really care much either way, but still.

Even more, I've heard that apparently in at least a few tonal languages like Cantonese and Hmong, the music is always forced to fit the tones rather than the other way around, so lyrics and melodies have to be considered as inseparable. I can't imagine how that can be dealt with in some cases, and it could well be that there are cases where it can't, which seems impractical but apparently it's still adhered to.

The whole subject of how much language affects the rhythm of music is a hot potato, and what kind of rhythms "feel right" with which languages, but undeniably it's real to some degree. I'm not convinced it's rigid in anything except folk music, even if it may be a fairly modern (and purely western-originated) thing to discard the "natural rhythm" of a language in music... in a song like this, you might be right that there could be a lot of "phonetic accommodation" going on, if the song wasn't originally in whatever language it is.

The "ju gmorani" sounds more like "yug moranyu" to me.

The <j> I used is IPA [j], the palatal approximant, which I assume you're referring to as well. And hmm, I can also hear [njɨ]~[ɲɨ] or something if I try, but to my ears it sounds more like [ni]~[ɲi]~[nɪ]~[ɲɪ] or something like that and I can't hear a rounded vowel. It's possible my ears suck, though.

But hmmm, telling where one word begins and another ends really is hard. The [g], if it exists, being in the coda of the previous syllable would make more sense than an initial [gm] cluster, though, so you're probably right. It just sounds so "tight" to me that I hear it as an initial cluster (when I hear it like that instead of as [qʷ] or [qw] or whatever).

"naje guru" could be "nayek uru", "na yegur u", or something else. In theory, each line could just be one single, long word...

Yeah, or even monosyllabic words!

Definitely not Bantu.

I figured it wouldn't be, but somehow a couple of words made me think that as a possibility...

~

I remembered that Southern Azerbaijani has /t͡s/, /ŋ/ and /ɢ/ and checked Wikipedia to make sure, and seems like it even has /w/ instead of /v/. And in Azerbaijani /ɯ/ and /ø/ are actually ambiguously prononuced as close to [ə] and with variation, so if it was Azerbaijani, that could mean it's not just me having trouble hearing the distinction and hearing it inconsistently but it actually being like that? Maybe [ɢ] could also explain how I can hear either [gmorɑni] or [qʷorɑni]?

Dunno tbh, and I'd hope I'd understand a little bit of it if it was Azerbaijani since I tried to learn Turkish and a bunch of other Turkic languages for a while and still remember some stuff about them, even if not much... or I mean, I can hear a few things in it if I try to listen with that kind of an ear but it just wouldn't make any sense at all so I'm almost certainly just mishearing/misunderstanding/failing.

(I guess it can't be Hungarian, since probably someone who knows Hungarian would've already identified it by now...?)

I swear, if it turns out to be Brazilian Portuguese...

[Linguaphile]

Even more, I've heard that apparently in at least a few tonal languages like Cantonese and Hmong, the music is always forced to fit the tones rather than the other way around, so lyrics and melodies have to be considered as inseparable. I can't imagine how that can be dealt with in some cases, and it could well be that there are cases where it can't, which seems impractical but apparently it's still adhered to.

Yes, in Hmong that's true, at least for certain traditional styles of music. There are modern styles that are modeled after American or Thai or other styles of music where this isn't done, but in traditional Hmong music the tones definitely have to be clearly sung. The traditional style does not use melodies in the western sense that you are thinking of, and given that Hmong has so-called "breathy" and "creaky" tones along with high and low and rising and falling, traditional Hmong singing (kwv txhiaj) has its own distinctive sound, where the tones entirely carry the melody so any melody that the tones require is possible.
Here's what it sounds like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmJxxATnAao
And an example of what this same style of singing sounds like when slightly modified and set to western-style music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDNkYukIPFI
The second video above is a remix, she sang it originally without the music which is the more traditional way, here if you want to hear that.

I'm no help with identifying the language of the clip posted earlier though, sorry.

[Naava]

For example, in Finnish one controversial topic a lot of people feel passionate about one way or another is how some singers sing in an "Americanised way", and that doesn't mean just "lazy Englishy pronunciations" or "American twang" or whatever but anything that doesn't have "perfect clarity" (it's all chucked to American influence, even if it's not always that). There are even some people who take it as far as complaining about singing diphthongs and long vowels as, well, diphthongs and long vowels instead of two separate vowels!

What, really? I've somehow missed this debate completely.

In actual folk music people use dialectal pronunciations where it can seem like vowels and consonants get dropped entirely at random (presumably it's not random, but...)

I can assure you they are not dropped at random.

Even more, I've heard that apparently in at least a few tonal languages like Cantonese and Hmong, the music is always forced to fit the tones rather than the other way around, so lyrics and melodies have to be considered as inseparable. I can't imagine how that can be dealt with in some cases, and it could well be that there are cases where it can't, which seems impractical but apparently it's still adhered to.

Funny you should say that - I've just watched this video It's about Mandarin Chinese, not Cantonese or Hmong, but perhaps you'd find it interesting anyways.

I'm no help with identifying the language of the clip posted earlier though, sorry.

Thanks for the video though!

I'd love to help identifying the language but I'm honesty quite bad at naming or recognising languages. I tried to listen to the clip but it wasn't any of the languages I know. It did sound kinda East/South European* to me, though, but like Vlürch said, singing takes away the natural rhythm of a language. This would be easier if you could hear the intonation.

*It made me think of Spanish for some reason.

[Vlürch]

Yes, in Hmong that's true, at least for certain traditional styles of music. There are modern styles that are modeled after American or Thai or other styles of music where this isn't done, but in traditional Hmong music the tones definitely have to be clearly sung.

Strangely it's kind of a relief to hear that the "even in pop and rock, the tones are always followed!" claim I read in some Youtube comment once isn't (at least entirely) true haha, because I'd assume at least Hands don't conform to tones, right? It's the only Hmong band I know of lol, and I really like this song by them.

The traditional style does not use melodies in the western sense that you are thinking of, and given that Hmong has so-called "breathy" and "creaky" tones along with high and low and rising and falling, traditional Hmong singing (kwv txhiaj) has its own distinctive sound, where the tones entirely carry the melody so any melody that the tones require is possible.

That's interesting, and sounds interesting. Not exactly something I'd listen to often, and the acapella version of that second one was much cooler imho.

What, really? I've somehow missed this debate completely.

It's mostly something people say about young female pop singers like Evelina and Sanni, although I've heard that same complaint about some male pop singers too (at least Robin), since of course it's just as much motivated by sexism and ageism as the actual pronunciation. Sanni does sometimes pronounce both /ɑ/ and /æ/ as some intermediate sound like [ɐ~a], but that's something some young women do even in speech (apparently since the 70's ), and tbh I'll admit I personally find it mildly annoying too but it doesn't have much (if any) effect on me liking her music and it's more annoying in speech than singing imho. The problem is that pronunciation and singing style are conflated, and that it's seen as "lazifying American influence" even in cases where it probably isn't, and that it's always seen as a bad thing...

Funny you should say that - I've just watched this video It's about Mandarin Chinese, not Cantonese or Hmong, but perhaps you'd find it interesting anyways.

Cool, that was interesting and funny! I laughed out loud at the examples. And one of the songs, I'd actually heard before (千年等一回), but it was a different version, by Ju Jingyi. This one's more energetic haha.

I'd love to help identifying the language but I'm honesty quite bad at naming or recognising languages.

Same.

It did sound kinda East/South European* to me

There really is something like that to it, but I'm not sure why. Maybe just that it sounds melancholic...

Moraczewski could try sending it to Justin Whang, he often makes videos about mysterious things (including a few about mysteryious songs) and at least a couple of times mysteries have been solved soon after he made a video about them due to the sheer number of his viewers. Then again, this probably isn't a notable enough "mystery" for him to dedicate an entire video to...

Maybe posting it on Reddit in r/NameThatSong or something could lead to not only the language but also the song and artist being identified? I doubt it'd have a high chance of success, but it may be worth a shot?

Sorry, I swear I'm becoming obsessed with this song lol... it sounds so haunting and almost has an "uncanny valley" vibe to it in how vague the language sounds and how familiar it sounds at the same time.

[Linguaphile]

Yes, in Hmong that's true, at least for certain traditional styles of music. There are modern styles that are modeled after American or Thai or other styles of music where this isn't done, but in traditional Hmong music the tones definitely have to be clearly sung.

Strangely it's kind of a relief to hear that the "even in pop and rock, the tones are always followed!" claim I read in some Youtube comment once isn't (at least entirely) true haha, because I'd assume at least Hands don't conform to tones, right? It's the only Hmong band I know of lol, and I really like this song by them.

Right, because the rule ("the tones must be pronounced correctly") applies to the specific types of folk music that were originally Hmong, not to non-traditional styles.
The idea that traditional "rules" for singing can't be easily applied to other styles of music is certainly not limited to tonal languages or Hmong. Finnish for example has strict rules for the position of long and short vowels in trochaic tetrameter for folk songs, but that isn't usually followed in pop and rock or when it is then the music is considered "folk" along with whatever pop/rock/etc designation is appropriate.
I know, you're thinking: why should the rules of Kalevala meter be followed in pop and rock? But it's analogous to the issue of tones that you're asking about, except that with Finnish folk music it's vowel length paired with meter, rather than tones; it works perfectly with traditional songs but with modern styles of popular music there are situations when that just isn't going to work. It's the same with Hmong singing: if it's in a traditional style it follows the traditional rules and works beautifully, if it's in a borrowed style it follows the borrowed rules because, well, that's sort of the point of borrowing the style.

[Vlürch]

The idea that traditional "rules" for singing can't be easily applied to other styles of music is certainly not limited to tonal languages or Hmong.

Mm, yeah, it just seems like with tones it'd be even more limiting than rhythmic things. But maybe that's not true.

~

I keep listening to the mystery song Moraczewski posted, and the more I listen, the more confused I get. I'm basically obsessed (sorry Moraczewski... )

The consonants that to me sound unquestionably to occur in coda are just [r] and [ŋ], probably [n] but it's less distinct to my ears, and of course [m] in [kɑmpɑnijɑ]~[kompɑnijɑ] but that's (almost) certainly a loanword and it could still just be a homorganically assimilated nasal, and [g] if it's better to assume the words with it don't have initial clusters (and they actually have it).

If it was Hungarian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Albanian or some North(west/east) Caucasian language (or the infamous Brazilian Portuguese ), wouldn't it be likely to have at least one sibilant coda somewhere? And with Caucasian languages, not having a single velar, uvular or pharyngeal fricative would seem unlikely? I mean, of course lyrics can be written in a way that avoids (or just happens to not include) certain sounds that occur in a lot of common words and affixes, but...

Anyway, a possible lead? Probably very unlikely, but it's worth posting...? I googled "гэрэн" (among a lot of other searches...) in an attempt to maybe find something written in some language that'd look like it might have words that are the same or at least similar to words in this, and found the universal declaration of human rights in Nanai, which starts off with гэрэн гурун, apparently meaning "people" (but just гурун apparently also means "people"). The [guru] does sound like it could actually be [gurun], so hmm.

Some similarities between that text in Nanai and this song, as I hear it:

1) най - according to Wiktionary it means "person"; could be the [nɑje]...?

2) many words end in -ба and ва - according to a pdf on Nanai grammar I found by googling "Nanai grammar" (not linking since the site seems a bit shady) is the accusative case; could be the [bɑ] in what I hear as [bɑbu], as part of the previous word, and the [ʋɑ] and [wɑ] in [kɑtiwɑ]~[kʷɑtiʋɑ]

a word containing гори and another containing го̄ри, but not just either or begins with either
3) мэнэ - according to this dictionary it means "self"; not an exact match to anything in the song AFAICT, but...

I guess some other things as well, and on that dictionary site if you just type whatever, looks like there are a lot of similar words in Nanai but none that would be an exact match to anything at least I hear.

This was interesting, though:
нам-нам бӣ apparently means "accurate"; I can hear the [nɑnɑmi] and [nɑn mɑni] as that if I try, but at the part I hear as [non mɑŋi] I just can't hear it as not having [ŋ]. And usurprisingly "thousand" in Nanai is миӈган, and I can hear that line as [nonmɑ miŋgɑn tiʋɑ] or [nɑnmɑ miŋgɑn tiʋɑ] or something like that. And of course, these two are mutually exclusive, so... eh.

I tried to find some music in Nanai for comparison, and what I can find on Youtube doesn't really sound similar, seems there tend to be a lot more sibilants and especially post-alveolar affricates and obvious uvular stops, diphthongs and lots of "H-sounds" in the handful of songs that I could find just searching "Nanai music" and "нанайская музыка".

So, it's probably not Nanai... but dunno, is it impossible? Or some other Tungusic language? Probably impossible tbh, oh well.

Sorry for spamming so much, ugh. This song is just really cool and the language sounds cool, so I'd like to know what it is haha.

[awrui]

This mystery song is stuck in my head, too

I tried some words written in different ways in google translate, the closest I got was Bulgarian... But only some words. So it's very probably not that
Maybe Moraczewski should post it to reddit? There are more people, one of them might speak that language.


(I really enjoyed the Hmong singing, thanks! Very interesting)

[vijayjohn]

I should probably go through these posts more carefully at some point, but I'm just gonna say I have a suspicion the singers are just Russians butchering another language. It reminds me of the time famous late Macedonian Romani singer Esma Redžepova sang the following song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NyLXr4Ucgk
People in the Balkans seem to generally assume it's a Romani song, and it's even labeled as such on cassettes/CDs! In reality, it's nothing of the sort. It's just her butchering this famous old Bollywood song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs5tvy6G1r8
Lyrics and translation: https://www.filmyquotes.com/songs/3825

I wonder whether this could even just be another old Bollywood song being butchered.

Please tell me this isn't Portuguese again!

EDIT:

Does anyone recognize the phrase "Dosei Parete"? The context given is "recycling" or "rebirth", but I'm not sure where this would come from.

Maybe this is Latin. Parite means '(y'all) give birth!' in Latin. Doce would mean 'teach!'

[Vlürch]

This mystery song is stuck in my head, too

We've been cursed...

I tried some words written in different ways in google translate, the closest I got was Bulgarian... But only some words. So it's very probably not that

Bulgarian does have a lot of [ə] or something like that, so who knows? I thought it wouldn't be a Slavic language or Moraczewski would recognise it (and that it'd have a lot more consonant clusters if it was), but maybe not. If it is Slavic, maybe the [ju] endings could even be the same as in Russian, first-person singular present tense suffix? Doesn't look like Bulgarian has that, though, so probably not if it is Bulgarian. I also don't know if it's just a thing in Russian but not other Slavic languages.

I have a suspicion the singers are just Russians butchering another language.

That'd be pretty interesting, and not necessarily surprising. But would Russians (likely) butcher any language by adding [w] and [ŋ], though, since Russian itself doesn't have either? Unless it's German and they're hypercorrecting the orthographic <w> as [w]...? Or maybe if it's French, and the [ŋ] is just a substitution for nasal vowels. But if it's a language that has [w] and [ŋ] and those are pronounced correctly, it wouldn't be the worst butchering at least.

I swear, if it's French and the [mɑni kɑtiwɑ] or whatever is actually me and some conjugated form of the verb niquer, and the [nɑnɑmi kʷɑtiʋɑ] and [non mɑŋi kʷɑtiʋɑ] is the same but with non added, and the lyrics have "fuck(ed) me" and "don't/didn't fuck me" or something in them... Pretty sure it's not French, though...

I wonder whether this could even just be another old Bollywood song being butchered.

Does it sound Bollywood-esque, though?🤔 At least to my ears that song you linked "sounds Indian" in terms of the music itself, which of course is hard or even impossible to define (I think the percussion is a big part of it), but the one Moraczewski posted sounds basically like a "typical old (Eastern) European sad song" at least to my ears, and like it has a Hammond organ or something similar (which doesn't mean anything in that regard, of course).

I still keep thinking of Azerbaijani, but maybe it's just the "jazzy swinginess" it has while knowing Azerbaijani jazz is a thing with an old history... although what first made me think of that "for real" was Southern Azerbaijani having [ɢ], and it doesn't even sound like this has that sound, but like, after the thought of it being Azerbaijani, I just can't shake the impression of that being a possibility... but you thought of Tatar at first and maybe that's why.

It'd be pretty cool if it was some Indian language, though. Would the [guru] thing then be, well, guru?

Please tell me this isn't Portuguese again!

[Osias]

at the meme.

About Basque not having this or that: there's a lot of dialects and the song is old, so...

[Osias]

Also the song style somehow reminds me of stereotypical Hawaiian songs from cartoons.

[Vlürch]

at the meme.

It had to be made...

About Basque not having this or that: there's a lot of dialects and the song is old, so...

Mmh, true... and I'm also going only off of what I hear, maybe my ears are just totally wrong. It might help the search if other people transcribed how they hear it, but maybe I'm the only one who's gotten obsessed with it to the point where I don't get bored spending hours trying to find matching words in different languages lol.

Also the song style somehow reminds me of stereotypical Hawaiian songs from cartoons.

Now that you mention it, there is a little bit of that vibe haha.

~

More ramblings à la Time Cube in my obsessive search:

Mari?

At first I didn't think it could be any Uralic language, but thinking about it again and deciding to look up words in various online dictionaries of different Uralic languages that I don't know much about (mostly using this site's dictionaries but then also this one for Mari), it seems like Mari has a bunch of similar words. Well, only a few exact matches to what I hear in the lyrics, but it's something. There's куат meaning "strength" (could be the [kʷɑt]), раман meaning "framed" (could be the [rɑmɑn]), бабун meaning "wild rosemary, marsh tea" (could be the [bɑbu]), сур and its adverbial form сурын meaning "grey" (could be the [t͡sureŋ] and [tureŋ]), etc.

Possibly interestingly, Mari has ранган meaning "of a class, of a rank", which could be that [rɑŋɑn] stuff I hear if I mishear word boundaries; it'd even fit with the [kɑmpɑnijɑ] stuff, and there is кампаний meaning "campaign", and Mari genitive is -(ы)н and the genitive is кампанийын, so... hmm.🤔

Slightly longer, if I mishear the word boundaries, there's кӧрага meaning "thicket", which could be what I varyingly hear as [gərəŋɑ], [gərɑŋɑ] and [gerɑŋɑ], and югорно meaning "magical way, magical path", which could maybe be the [jugmorɑn] stuff I guess. Apparently Mari also has гор-гор as some kind of ideophone of a "hoarse voice", but then that's reduplicated while none of the even remotely [gor]-sounding stuff in this song is, so eh. Other similar words (all ideophones or whatever) in Mari are кыр-гыр, кыр-гор and гыр-гӱр, and if I really stretch my ears, I can maybe hear the first of those three being the [gərəŋɑr], etc. stuff I hear, but not really...

But as with a lot of languages, it's not like Mari avoids closed syllables and particularly has sibilant and lateral codas, while this song doesn't have even one AFAICH...

"Guti"?

I also remembered this post about "Guti" again (from thinking where I've come across similar words to what I hear in this song) and... well, it doesn't seem to have exact matches to any words (but without knowing the phonology I'm just guessing based on other Cyrillic orthographies), but it does have the kinda similar short words көр, ңөр and кур, and гөрө-гөрө (which of course has the same reduplication problem as Mari гор-гор).

There's also the longer word(?) нәм-ан-нәк, which, assuming I mishear word boundaries, is kinda similar to what I hear varyingly as [nɑnɑmik], [nonmɑŋik], [nɑnmɑnik] and [nonmɑŋik]. Not sure what phoneme <ә> would represent in that case; Wikipedia does say it's used for /ə/ or /ε~a/ in Kurdish and /ɤ/ in Dungan, and those are both sounds I struggle hearing correctly.🤔 It'd also be a weird coincidence if whatever that word means was also in this song even if it was the same language. And assuming it wasn't just a conlang, of course.

Then again, it's a small sample but even so it also seems like the language has a lot more closed syllables than this song...

Some Iranian language?

I don't know if that "Guti" is some Iranian language, but if Wikipedia is right and Kurdish has a phoneme that's variously /ə/ or /ε~a/, maybe that could explain the weird vowel variations in the song? I've only heard Kurdish a handful of times but to me the song doesn't sound like it's Kurdish, but there are like a gazillion Iranian languages. I don't really know much about any of them, literally nothing about the smaller ones (there probably are at least two gazillion and I've only heard of one gazillion), but like, maybe not all of them have tons of closed syllables like Persian and Kurdish? IIRC at least Avestan didn't/doesn't, so even though it's obviously not Avestan, maybe it could be Ossetian or something?

Ossetian at least seems to have some kinda similar words, but not really any exact or even close "matches" from my quick look at Glosbe (but it doesn't have that many words), and tbh it also looks like it has a lot of closed syllables with consonant clusters and stuff.

Dungan?

...and on the note of Dungan, could that be a possibility? I mean, it doesn't sound at all Sinitic to my ears and I also already discarded the idea because I saw гэран meaning "pencil" on Wiktionary (which mentions an alternative form гәран) because it has the pronunciation in IPA as /kɛ²⁴ læ̃²⁴/ and /kə²⁴ læ̃²⁴/, which definitely isn't the same as any of the words at least I hear in this song if pronounced like that. But could it maybe be Dungan sung by someone who isn't native or even fluent in it, and as such uses some kind of spelling pronunciation according to different orthographic rules...? Or maybe some dialect that's been very heavily influenced by Russian and/or Turkic languages?

Like, if I start to listen with the thought "is this Sinitic?" the tons of coda [ŋ] I can't help but hear would make sense. And at least orthographically, Dungan also does have some similar words: ңай meaning "we", гә meaning "horn", ңә meaning "goose", нагә meaning "that", etc. And if the lyrics do refer to the Quran, that would make Dungan the most likely Sinitic language... but it still doesn't sound Sinitic to my ears. But I've only heard Dungan in like two clips on Youtube and never any music in it, and if it was Dungan being butchered by someone who doesn't speak it fluently... hmm. Eh, probably not.

P-P-P-Portuguese?!?! (this time unironically)

Okay, not Portuguese but some Romance language? The tonniness of open syllables makes me think of Italian, but obviously it's not Italian either, so maybe some small Romance language that similarly has mainly open syllables but is kinda weird-sounding? I know even less about small Romance languages than small Iranian languages, as in off the top of my head I could only name a handful that aren't the main language of a country, but IIRC some of them had some weird stuff going on that made them sound different from stereotypical Romance languages?

Like, maybe Venetian or something? Apparently it has a lot of coda velar nasals?

Then the [kɑmpɑnijɑ], [kʷɑt], [gərɑ], etc. could be descendants of Latin campania, quad, guerra, etc.

Probably not, but uhh...

~

So in a nutshell, I again wasted over three hours of my life on this.😑 Although I do think Mari may be a real possibility, or at least of these few the most likely, I don't really think that's very likely either. I wish one of those Youtube language turbonerds who've learned to get to a third-grader's level in a gazillion languages would pop up like "oh lmao that's [language], duh, y'all are deaf or what????" and it'd turn out to be a language that a lot of music has been made in. But it's probably not a language that a lot of music has been made in, and none of those language turbonerds would ever go on a forum.😔

Sorry for spamming this thread full of unhelpful ramblings, ughhh.

[nijk]

Hello, can somebody tell me what language this is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF0JdAim6Pc

[Linguaphile]

Hello, can somebody tell me what language this is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF0JdAim6Pc

Georgian.

[nijk]

Georgian.

Thank you!

[Moraczewski]

But would Russians (likely) butcher any language by adding [w] and [ŋ], though, since Russian itself doesn't have either? Unless it's German and they're hypercorrecting the orthographic <w> as [w]...? Or maybe if it's French, and the [ŋ] is just a substitution for nasal vowels. But if it's a language that has [w] and [ŋ] and those are pronounced correctly, it wouldn't be the worst butchering at least.

Given that the song is apparently from the 1970s or 60s, Russians didn't sing much in foreign languages back then, and if they did, it would have been English, German, Italian or other Slavic languages, hardly an obscure language of Asia. By the "vibe" of the song I thought Romani, but it can be some language from Caucasus region. Mari is very unlikely, they have more upbeat songs and don't often use this kind of wailing singing. I am very much into Mari music so while I don't speak a word in Mari I can see that this is not Mari.

Well, it's absolutely crazy that this song caused such a discussion! I think I need to ask people from USSR, because it's 99% the song is from USSR, but yes we have hundreds of languages here, it can be any of them. Georgian, Ossetian, Azerbaijani - anything. I'll update if I get any additional info.

[Moraczewski]

Okay, at least other versions of this melody were found. The lyrics vary from version to version, but it seems that the song in question is in Indonesian/Malay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yzWkddUc8s

[Linguaphile]

Okay, at least other versions of this melody were found. The lyrics vary from version to version, but it seems that the song in question is in Indonesian/Malay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yzWkddUc8s

Wow! Yes, it definitely seems to be some variation of that! I'm impressed that you found it. On Youtube you can also find some versions which have the title "Suling bambu" (instead of "Seruling bambu"), which sounds closer to that particular line in your version of the song, although the rest is mostly still different, with only a few of the same words (sayup, berirama, etc). In both cases the title means a type of bamboo flute so mixed into the results on Youtube there are unrelated pieces played on bamboo flutes. I don't know enough Indonesian or Malay to know whether the rest of the lyrics in your version are understandable, or not. Maybe someone else can say. In any case I'm impressed that you've found this!

This one has an English translation in the second half:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaE951x2wKY