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Interestingly, we have a word in French to call these gibberish languages that sound like real ones but have no meaning. It's called speaking "yogurt". It was
by Galanwe 6y ago
Interestingly, we have a word in French to call these gibberish languages that sound like real ones but have no meaning.
It's called speaking "yogurt".
It was originally used because young French people wanted to sing the English songs that they heard, but didn't know the language, so they would make up sounds that looked like English.
- proper_black 6y agoThis exact thing is called "washawasheo" or "washawashear" in (Mexican) Spanish. It would be cool to know what languages have this, as I'm pretty sure not all of them do (Russian doesn't, for example).
- ryanschneider 6y agoReminds me of the (supposed?) etymology of “barbarian”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarian > The Greeks used the term barbarian for all non-Greek-speaking peoples, including the Egyptians, Persians, Medes and Phoenicians, emphasizing their otherness. According to Greek writers, this was because the language they spoke sounded to Greeks like gibberish represented by the sounds "bar..bar..;"
- ta1234567890 6y agoAnd a band made a hit song in Spanish about it in the early 2000s, Asereje: https://youtu.be/V0PisGe66mY https://youtu.be/V0PisGe66mY
- grey_earthling 6y agoThis song is loosely a cover of Rapper's Delight.
- johncoltrane 6y agoInteresting, I have never heard the expression "chanter en yaourt" used for anything other than fake English.
- 33degrees 6y agoInteresting! I imagine this is specific to France as I’ve never heard this in Québec...