The language in question is heard here (streaming .mp3, perfectly legal, don’t worry). This is the Eastern Orthodox Paschal troparion in several languages, and I am having trouble identifying the third one that is sung. The order of languages sung is:
-pre-Nikonian Slavonic
-Latin
-unknown language (starts at about 0:40)
-modern Slavonic
-Greek
-Georgian
-Georgian (again)
At first I thought the language might be Romanian, but listening to it while looking at the text of that language shows that it’s definitely not that. Similar results were obtained by examining the text in Albanian and Armenian, which were my other two guesses. It’s certainly not Finnish or Japanese, and neither is it in any of the Slavic languages, as they all are almost the same and I would have recognized it. Therefore, this is driving me insane.
OK, according to some listeners on another board, it may be Turkish, but this is not confirmed. Are there any Turkish speakers on here willing to give it a listen?
I often have trouble identifying oral renderings of languages that I can make out at least a small amount of in written form, and listened to your MP3 without any familiarity.
Let me point out, however, that in addition to Greek, Armenian, Albanian, and a dozen or so Slavic languages, extant and extinct, Orthodox liturgies are found in English, Arabic, Georgian, Ossetian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Finnish, Estonian, Coptic, Ge’ez, and probably a wide variety of other tongues. (I’m aware of one Orthodox church in Ireland that offers the liturgy in English and Irish Gaelic, though of course not simultaneously.)
Indeed, but most of those can be ruled out. It’s not Georgian or Arabic (I know those, and it’s also not to the Arabic melody), I have the text for Finnish and it’s not that, and I know Coptic well enough to know it’s not that. One of the Baltic languages is a possibility…
It has been pointed out to me that the back of the album (which I own, embarassingly enough) lists the track as in “Slavonic, Latin, Turkish, Greek, Georgian”. So it’s Turkish. Thanks to anybody who tried.
So do I, but I’m surprised they used it – it’s very much lingua non grata in the Orthodox world. Heck, on a particular Orthodox message board I’m on, Turks are referred to (only half-jokingly) as T*rks, as if it were an obscenity. Bad blood still runs deep.
[sidebar]I’ve got nothing to contribute to this discussion - I’d just like to say that I’m glad you’ve decided to come back, yBeayf - thought we’d lost you a month ago. Always enjoy your posts. [/sidebar]
