Gibberish and its variants aren’t just for goofy teens in the wayback of the station wagon. As Jessica Weiss notes in Schwa Fire, the online magazine about language, people all over the world speak various forms of it. Her article features sound clips of some examples. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Variations on Gibberish”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. Here’s a recording of a conversation I’d like you to hear.
Two of these women are sisters, and one of them is a total stranger.
All three of them speak English as their first language.
But in this conversation, they’re using English with a kind of twist.
But let me just say that all of them understand each other perfectly.
Wow.
I love it.
How about that?
That’s amazing, right?
Yes.
What is the syllable they’re inserting in those words?
They are inserting the syllables idig.
Idig.
Yes, they’re speaking a form of gibberish that they call idig.
So, for example, the name Grant would be gritagant.
Gritagant.
Yes, but they’re doing that with all the words.
Now, remember, these are sisters who are talking with a woman they’ve never met before who also happens to speak gibberish.
And in this next little clip, one of them says, definitely, it’s so weird to hear you speaking gibberish.
It makes me feel like you must be someone from my family.
And the other one says, yeah, me too.
Listen and see if you can hear it.
Did you hear it?
I heard it.
Yeah, wow.
Yeah, it’s really cool, but I can’t imagine being able to speak like that.
How long does the practice take, and is it worth it in the end?
That’s my question, and I don’t know how long it would take.
I think it would be worth it, though.
But you can learn a whole lot more about gibberish in English and a whole lot of different languages in an article on Schwa Fire, which is an online magazine about language.
That’s schwa-fire.com.
And in this article, writer Jessica Weiss notes that you’ll find forms of gibberish all over the world in Spanish-speaking countries, in Pakistan, in Iran, Cambodia.
And she says that there’s no definitive research on gibberish and gender, but it sure seems like it appeals in particular to little girls.
I wonder why that is.
Well, I think that some linguists have talked about the fact that for little girls, they’re all about bonding and relationships.
And women tend to be in the forefront of linguistic innovation just in conversation, right?
So it’s a fascinating.
That’s amazing.
I love the sound of that.
I do, too.
Did you ever do that when you were a kid?
No.
You know, I fooled around with stuff about the same time I was working in ciphers, you know, just trying to figure out puzzles and codes and things.
And this was often presented in Boys Life, was a magazine I subscribed to, as a way to communicate with your siblings so your parents couldn’t tell.
But it was more trouble to try to recruit my siblings than it was just to tell them things in a whisper, you know?
You had to be getting other kids to cooperate is the hard part.
I know.
I know.
And you’d think they would because sometimes your parents do that.
You know, they speak in their own language.
Right, the highfalutin talk, the big words that you just don’t know yet.
Yeah, or they spell out words that you’re too young to.
Well, we know you’ve got personal languages.
There’s a code you invented.
There’s a speech that you’ve got.
There’s a gibberish that you share with your siblings.
Do call and share it.
We want to hear it.
