Language Gibberish

Question

Sometimes, in humor (or an attempt thereof), people will make up gibberish in a certain language in an attempt to poke fun at a language or its speakers. Made-up French, German, Italian, Chinese, most of us have heard this.

My first question is, does anybody have any examples of non-English speakers making up "English" gibberish? English is my native language. I am very curious about the perception of how English sounds by non-English speakers.

Edit: I previously stated that I believed it was difficult for a speaker to create gibberish in their own language (or at least, I've never heard it). The link posted by Josh Jolly below proved that incorrect. So, more accurately, it seems there is a significant difference between mimicking a language one is fluent in vs. a language one does not know at all. The former has a bias towards constructs known to have significance (e.g. common word roots), while the latter has a bias towards perceived common sounds independent of their context.

I find this whole concept of gibberish incredibly fascinating. One has to perceive a language that they do not understand, make judgments (often grossly inaccurate) about its defining sounds and tone, then construct sounds that mimic that, but all this is done by a mind that is trained to perceive and construct sounds in their native language. A French speaker may fail to notice subtle sounds and inflections that are meaningful and significant to, say, a German speaker, and therefore a native French speaker and German speaker may end up producing completely different results when making up "Italian" sounding words.

So, my second question is, is there anybody here who is fluent in other languages besides English that has any interesting anecdotes about the differences in gibberish among speakers of different languages? Does made up "French" sound significantly different in, say, Japanese than it does in English? A non-French-speaking Japanese speaker and English speaker may perceive and process French and produce "French" gibberish in entirely different ways. Examples, especially in comedy, would be appreciated.

Update: As an example of this, consider the French gibberish spoken by British comedian Kenneth Williams (via Leon Conrad's answer below) vs. American comedian Louis C.K. (or American comedian Reggie Watts, a master of gibberish, at 0:40 in this video). As I mentioned in a comment below, while I have no concrete evidence, it seems to me that when imitating French, Americans tend to include more fricatives (particularly v, z, ʒ) while Britons tend to focus more on nasal vowels (the video examples support this). I wonder if this is somehow related to exposure to different intensities of sounds like 'r' (a difference that commonly comes up when British and Australian English speakers mock American or Canadian English)?

I of course acknowledge that "humor" is subjective, and it is indeed true that prejudice and racial humor is a common source of this type of gibberish. That aside, I do find the process fascinating.

Answer 1

"Prisencolinensinainciusol" is a song by the Italian singer/comedian Adriano Celentano with nonsense lyrics that are intended to sound like American-accented English. As it happens, I played it for my wife two nights ago and asked her to guess what language it was sung in; she eventually guessed English, though she couldn't understand the words. So if it's convincing enough to fool my wife, a native English speaker, I'm happy to accept that it's a pretty good simulation of what English sounds like to non-English speakers, or at least to Italians. Celentano apparently speaks no English himself, so it's a "pure" simulation, untainted by any actual knowledge of the language on the part of the singer.

You can see and hear "Prisencolinensinainciusol" here, and listen to an entertaining NPR radio story about it here. Warning: this song is incredibly addicting.

Answer 2

So far as I'm concerned, the acknowledged master of of the art was Stanley Unwin, whose "gibberish language" is sometimes called Unwinese. Here's an example on YouTube...

The bizarre thing about Unwinese is that although it's probably incomprehensible to most non-native speakers, Anglophones normally find it relatively easy to get the gist, because it has the exact cadence of normal spoken English (and the odd semantically significant morpheme).

Answer 3

Here's a video of some "English" gibberish - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt4Dfa4fOEY

Answer 4

Lewis Carrol's Jabberwocky is a famous example of grammatically correct English gibberish.

I guess it does not entirely count as gibberish because the underlying structure is correct, and there are many actual English words in between. Many of the descriptors of the poem call it nonsense rather than gibberish.

So, whether or not you consider it According to Hoyle gibberish, I think it deserves honorable mention. If for no other reason than the common adoption of many of its neologisms! (e.g. galumphing, and chortle.)

Answer 5

The only examples I can think of are of English comedians into other languages -

The best example is Catherine Tate's 'offensive translator' sketch, which you may know, but if not, enjoy! (apologies if it offends anyone)

Check out Kenneth Williams's accents clip here.

His 'Ma Crepe Suzette' isn't gibberish, but I'm including it for variety.

ADDITIONALLY:

I've done theatre impro courses with Keith Johnstone and he uses 'foreign gibberish' cards to help weak/unconfident improvisers find their way into impro. There may be some references to his methods in his 2 books on impro.

Answer 6

"Blinkenlights" is a neologism referring to the diagnostic lights on the front of mainframe computers. The terms comes from a sign in mock-German warning non-technical users away from messing around with the computer. There are a few small variations, but the sign generally ends with, approximately, "Relaxen und watchen der blinkenlichten." (Relax and watch the blinking lights.)

While the classic Blinkenlights sign with broken mock-German spread across the English-speaking computer world, the Germans came up with their own version¹, in broken mock-English:

ATTENTION

This room is fullfilled mit special electronische equippment.

Fingergrabbing and pressing the cnoeppkes from the computers is allowed for die experts only!

So all the “lefthanders” stay away and do not disturben the brainstorming von here working intelligencies.

Otherwise you will be out thrown and kicked anderswhere!

Also: please keep still and only watchen astaunished the blinkenlights.

Answer 7

This was actually a common trope in french comedy ten years ago. Comedians like Jamel Debbouze, Gad Elmaleh, Alain Chabat, and comedian duos like Eric & Ramzy and Kad & Olivier are famous for that kind of mock-english gibberish. An example that comes to mind is the singer in this scene from Kad & Olivier movie "Mais qui a tué Pamela Rose "(Who killed Pamela Rose, a parody of Twin Peaks).
Ten years ago, Alain Chabat even had a game show in which from time to time one of the games was what he called "yogurt-singing" in which he would sing badly a famous song but replacing the lyrics by random mock-english gibberish and the constestants were supposed to recognize the original song.

Answer 8

This does not completely address the question, but John Cleese once took an article on Business, swapped the beginnings and endings of the words, and memorized the result. He then had a few seconds of something that sounded very much like English, because it had English word fragments, but which was completely meaningless. I've heard it, and it sounds astonishingly and annoyingly like I, as a native anglophone, should understand it.

Answer 9

A colleague shared this with me today - I think you'll enjoy it!

Answer 10

On this link What English sounds like to people who don't speak it there is a comprehensive list of people speaking fake English on video.

The Swedish clip (the second video) imitates the deep southern drawl of Mississippi or Georgia. I'm guessing it's one of the two, perhaps someone who is American can confirm. Although the entire sketch is lightly peppered with real English words the Swedish comedian is speaking quasi gibberish.