Originally published at: This guy can speak gibberish in many different languages | Boing Boing
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Sid Caesar was brilliant at this. I’ve tried and found this to be VERY HARD to do.
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What about authentic frontier gibberish?
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Japanese band the Boredoms had whole albums in gibberish, and I was impressed by how they could move from Japanese gibberish to English gibberish and more specifically to James Brown gibberish.
This guy is even more impressive (though some were stronger than others). I couldn’t tell if some real words were mixed in or just slightly altered to be gibberish.
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For some reason I found his Arabian fake. Dunno why, I don’t speak it nor do I have significant contact with Arabs. The others sounded believable to me. Especially British, because I didn’t understand a word.
What about the German?
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Native Spanish speaker here. I can certify 100% that the Spanish gibberish is pure BS. He can speak Spanish gibberish with absolute success. 
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This guy speaks gibberish and everyone applauds.
When I speak gibberish during a business meeting and begin writhing around, foaming at the mouth, I get a visit from HR.
(edit)
Also this is a classic:
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The German sounded quite Germanic to me, but I thought the only weak spot was the French, and I don’t really speak French, but love listening to it in French films. It could be that French actors “sex up” the French?
I listened to Icelandic band Sigur Ros’s record ( ) for a long time, thinking I was hearing Icelandic, but then found out it’s a sort of Icelandic gibberish they call Vonlenska/Hopelandic.
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Huh, I didn’t actually realize that any of Sigur Ros’s records had anything like lyrics - I had always assumed it was all stretched-out glossolalia. () has more discernible (seeming) lyrics than the other stuff of theirs I had heard.
I remember reading that for a release of a Cocteau Twins album in Japan, someone had been tasked with listening to and transcribing the lyrics, which hadn’t been included in their other releases. Well, they hadn’t been included in any previous releases because the lyrics were gibberish. The poor bastard tasked with the job managed to do it anyways… those must have been fascinating.
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Yes used actual words for their lyrics, but don’t try to figure out what it means.
In music it’s called “scatting”
Didn’t watch that part. Also, as a native speaker I don’t feel that I could answer the really interesting question: can you fool someone who’s not a speaker.
I mean, you could probably fool me with Bavarian gibberish. The voice actors dubbing the two POC gentlemen in Airplane speak this, to save the humor into German without getting offensive. Though it still was somewhat comprehensible to me. Like Joe Black speaking Dutch in the eponymous movie.
Anyway, those are nice acts, certainly amusing and artificially crafted. I would repeat myself and take longer breaks far sooner, which would give it away. I wonder wether there are actual studies tasking non-speakers in distinguish between real and fake speech. And real and fake gibberish, with real gibberish meaning using real words in nonsensical combinations.
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The original is what a BoingBoing post looks like to non-Boingers.
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first 100 seconds are in non subtitled Italian. Cued up to where he sings fake English
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Isn’t “scatting” specific to jazz and involving a certain set of conventions - e.g. it’s onomatopoeic, not trying to sound like language (real or imagined), etc.? The only time I’ve seen it used for non-jazz music, it was still adhering to the jazz conventions, even though used in, say, rock music - it wouldn’t describe, for example, the Cocteau Twins, Boredoms or Adriano Celentano’s “Prisencolinensinainciusol.” I see the (usually) religious terms “glossolalia” used to describe the Cocteau Twins often, but the Boredoms/Adriano Celentano were trying to make something that sounds like English but isn’t, which is gibberish.
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very funny, but I did find the camera and editing annoying. I liked it more when I didn’t look at the screen.
For a fuller short-film plot in English gibberish, this was enjoyable. It’s especially amusing if you turn on the auto-generated subtitles.
