It's all greek to me

[Absinthe]

I can personally identify the sound of most european languages, or at least, categorize them in their wider group.

So for example, I know when someone speaks slavic. I may not be able to tell whether it's russian or bulgarian, etc.

I know when someone speaks german or french and I can tell someone's speaking a scandinavian language, or a germanic language in general. I also can tell when someone's speaking a finno-ugric language. And of course I now know it when someone speaks albanian.

Greek however, stands on its own on the language tree, and it is very distinct from anything else.

So I am curious:

how does greek sound to you? (and don't say 'all greek' )

I provide you a sample.

If you heard someone speaking greek on the street, could it confuse it with a slavic language, for example, could you tell it is greek or would you be at a loss as to indentifying what it is?

[YOUTUBE]7eyFwMZnP2o[/YOUTUBE]

Tell me!

[Absinthe]

And here's some more greek:

[youtube]leHBq1zE88I[/youtube]

...with a more characteristic tone...

[SuuT]

Greek has always sounded like an admixture of Spanish, German, Latin and (odd as it may sound) a bit of Danish to me. At any rate, I wouldn't confuse it as something slavic.

EDIT: Greece is in that geographic/linguistic transitional zone, though, where the I.E. languages, including Indo-Iranian and other eastern I.E. tounges, all seem to melt together with more westerly ones. So it does sound unique in that respect.

[Vargtand]

To me it sounds like a mix between I don’t know.. Italian spoken by a Spaniard? I think the pronunciation sounds closer to Italian but the melody sounds more Spanish.. I think at least.


But damn… that woman was speaking fast… how the hell can you speak that fast? I can’t even speak at half that speed.

[Treffie]

At first it does sound slightly Slavic, but after a while it sounds distinctly Greek. Sorry Absinthe.

Portuguese sometimes sounds Slavic too.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv5L9eG5lpk [/YOUTUBE]


Some people say that Welsh sounds like German spoken in an English accent.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSmAFGTDUKE [/YOUTUBE]

[Loki]

First impression, it sounds a bit like Spanish to me! But then again I'm no expert in Spanish as I can't speak it.

[Birka]

BTW, that Greek reporter was soooo sultry looking. It has a Slavic sound to me. But us Americans are probably not good at this, we rarely hear another language in our daily lives.

[Beorn]

All I can hear is "bar bar bar bar"

[Brynhild]

Ye Gods, do you all talk that fast? She'd talk the leg off a chair! I'd hazard a guess and say somewhere between Spanish and Italian. There's no mistaking the mediterranean inflection.

[Treffie]

All I can hear is "bar bar bar bar"

Cheeky!! Only because your ancestors probably spoke it or something similar!

We say `meee, meee` - pronounced mehhhh!