Reading and Language 21 Aug 2010 11:14 pm
Grammelot! I know it sounds a bit bizarre
Elsewhere, Jasper Patterson mentioned grammelot, which is today’s coolest thing I’d never heard of before. (It beats out “hot potato voice” by a mile.) If I could talk at all, you can bet I’d be practicing my gibberish-babbling right now. Here’s the astonishing Dario Fo:
I don’t know Italian or much of anything about Berlusconi, and I’m still floored. (He probably wouldn’t be surprised by that. In his Nobel speech, he said, “English-speakers will have a tremendous advantage over the rest because they will imagine things I’ve neither said nor thought.” Er. Well. Yes, I expect so.)
Jasper pointed out that “Prisencolinensinainciusol” can be seen as a modern example of grammelot. I’d buy that. I wonder if the Swedish Chef might be arguably a grammelotarian as well. And then there’s De Düva:
What else?
on 21 Aug 2010 at 11:40 pm 1.Cam Sculpin said …
There is one other thing I’m reminded of, and I’m reaching a little afield, but: scat singing. “Words that you can chew, with unusual sounds, with various techniques of rhythm and breathing, even with… rambling nonsense-speech” — that made me think of a scat bit in King&Moore’s version of “St. Thomas Way” that always kills me. And of course Ella Fitzgerald’s genius One Note Samba.
on 22 Aug 2010 at 1:23 pm 2.Cam Sculpin said …
Oh, duh. Tipitina!
on 22 Aug 2010 at 1:46 pm 3.Cam Sculpin said …
You know, some sense-numbed pedant with a soul six inches wide is probably going to come by here eventually and point out that neither scat nor babble is macaronic language. This much is true. It’s also true that I don’t particularly care. What I’m keying in on in Dario Fo’s work and Professor Longhair’s — and Prisencolinensainenciusol, for that matter — is the feeling of a verbal meaning that’s tantalizingly near but just out of reach.
(You’d think this would mean I’d love language poetry, but I generally don’t. It’s rare that I come across any that doesn’t smell like an English department.)
on 22 Aug 2010 at 2:19 pm 4.Grouchy Chris said …
Also on Language Log, you can find “yoghurting,” which is what the French call it when you don’t know a language but try to sing a song in it as if you do.