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19th October 2009

Video

What does the English language sound like to a foreigner? The video above has a pretty good stab at it. (I think. Can’t be sure, for obvious reasons.)

Completely by accident, I wandered into the topic of fake languages — that is, convincingly imitating a foreign language, rather than actual fake or constructed langauges — last night, and lost some time to Youtube. Here’s a German’s take on what English sounds like to a foreign ear. And here is a Spanish person’s take. Lots more on Youtube — I can’t find my favourite one now, annoyingly, a cute Argentinian girl’s take on it — mostly at the behest of this fellow, who spoke some fake Chinese, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, German, and Japanese, and asked for fake English in return. And about two thirds through this interview, John Cleese speaks “no language” which he describes as the first half of English words combined with the second half of others. (And don’t forget Unamanda, a fictional language created by David Ives for a skit in All In The Timing, where the word for the English language is “johncleese.” Here it is on Youtube, performed by the Pigeon Players Theatre Company.)

Fake foreign (to me, duh) languages are a little easier, for obvious reasons, and everyone’s tried their hand at that, some more famously than others: The Onion, the inimitable Sid Caesar, and numerous Youtube users, all discoverable by searching for “fake [language].”