Cried, “My! how fair you are!”
Around her bower, with quivering leaves.
The tall Kamsamahs [butler] grew,
And Kitmutgars [waiter at table] in wild festoons
Hung down from Tchokis [police or post station] blue.38
exercise
Soraismic Nonsense
Moi, deux, some fried belle in garcon and eoufs those my glass, s’il vous plait.
1. Write an example of soraismic nonsense, mixing English and any other language with which you are familiar.
2. Introspect, then record your feelings and impressions about the mental process of writing soraismic nonsense.
Faux Language
Faux language is meaningless verbiage that mimics the phonetic characteristics of an actual known language. Faux language can be made to sound like French, English, Italian, German, Chinese, or any other desired language.
Faux language is most common in the context of comedy. For example, the Swedish Chef, Jim Henson’s Muppet character, chortles joyfully in faux Swedish. His chortling sounds like Swedish to Americans and to others who do not speak Swedish. However, a Swedish student told me that the Swedish chef’s speech does not sound like Swedish to her. She likes the character, though, and he makes her laugh.
Similarly, I heard a French comedian entertain an audience in Paris with a funny nonsense version of English. Although it was hilarious, his faux English did not sound like English to me. Obviously, it sounded like English to his French audience, however.
Faux language is usually a parody or satire of the known language it mimics. It pokes fun at a language or at the people who speak that language. Accordingly, the grammar and vocabulary of the language are immaterial. What is important is that the sound of the faux language is similar to that of a known language. Thus, comedians speaking faux language often toss in a few actual words of the known language to enhance the illusion.
Mock Languages
Farizi
Jamastapozortin potara nefexi armasparizironarok: Noharbitorogonoki abraza gefek ozokokomastangiti. Spodotifolonihonik oprana ufeki spozizomomaskargiti.
Nuffish
Undee glunk bemummy dee gog charch posit mezazzle um nunch toof meluster clatch. Dem hobbib bezazzie potis, mulk teeka toof, um dee roofus dee min tibbles. Bondo. Ne mim ribble mo rast. Tumbummy! Dee gon konka dack um ribble mepaddy, unka diff dee somplety flookerdash.
A mock language is meaningless, unintelligible verbiage that is invented to look or sound like an unknown language. I wrote the passage below in “Bongonese” to serve as example. Bongonese looks and sounds like a language, but really there is no such language.
Hobbanopu nopoummum humbummum wum bumspummum. Ogga moonbam ugga gomgom, num wumbum wommawooba wobbnuppu onggom obba nopopummum nuppa gomgom nuppatuppa wooma wumwamma oggagom.
Mock languages provide us with no means of interpreting them. That is, we have no method of determining whether or not these passages are grammatically correct. Nor are there dictionaries in which we could look up the words to find out what they mean or check the spelling. Hence, at first, these mock languages seem beyond the pale.
Upon reflecting, however, we realize that mock languages have some basic structural features of known languages. They are written in the letters of the Roman alphabet. They are apparently divided into sentences. They are punctuated with ordinary punctuation marks, and the letters are grouped into small units that look like words.
Each maintains its own distinctive characteristics throughout the whole passage. Furthermore, many more mock languages are possible, each one unique and distinctive.
Writers create mock languages for works of fiction, including novels and movies. Mock languages represent the supposed languages of fictional tribes, beings from outer space, or, sometimes, animals. Thus, mock languages are common in science fiction.
Hence, we need to distinguish mock languages from artificial languages. The Klingon language of Star Trek, for example, is an artificial language. It has a grammar and vocabulary, and speakers who know it can use it to communicate. Indeed, some Star Trek fans speak Klingon among themselves, and there are Klingon dictionaries in which they can look up words. Artificial languages are unlike mock languages, for mock languages are devoid of grammar, vocabulary, or meaning.
John Taylor, Edward Lear, and other nonsense poets created mock languages, although Lewis Carroll never did. To demonstrate the typical characteristics of mock language, here is a passage of mock language by John Taylor from “Epitaph in the Bermuda Tongue”:
Hough gruntough wough Thornough/Coratough, Odcough robunquogh.39
exercise
Mock Language
Jamatapozortin potara nefexi armasparizrok. No harbitoronoga abrazan gefeko opranoto zamagiti.
Undee glunk bemummy dee gog charch posit mezazzle meluster gatch. Ne mimribble mo rast.
1. Write an original example of mock language.
2. Introspect, then record your feelings and impressions about the mental process of writing mock language.
Nonsense Stories
Nonsense can be built around the framework of a story or narrative. That is, meaningless, unintelligible language can be put together in the form of stories, and the nonsense stories that result produce a curious, dreamlike sense of narrative action. British actor Samuel Foote wrote the following nonsense story in the 1750s:
So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf, to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. “What? No soap?” So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button on top; and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.40
Foote wrote the story to challenge Charles Macklin, a retired actor who boasted that he could repeat anything from memory after hearing it just once. Foote’s story proved Macklin wrong. Nevertheless, the story is easy to memorize upon several re-readings. Hence, doctors once used Foote’s nonsense story to test their patients’ memory.
Playground rhymes often tell nonsense stories. Groups of children chant playground rhymes to create a beat for games, such as jumping rope or tossing a ball. Such rhymes are transmitted from child to child, with only minor alterations, for decades and decades, yet each succeeding generation of children believes that they themselves created those venerable verses. Playground rhymes integrate nonsense, meaningful words, narrating a story, and repetitive physical activity. Here is an example:
I went to the movies tomorrow
And took a front seat at the back.
I fell from the floor to the balcony
And broke a front bone in my back.
These nonsense stories consist mostly of self-contradictions that cancel themselves out. Reading the stories does create some sense of progressing from one action or event to the next, as in an intelligible story. Another famous playground rhyme incorporates the same pattern of a series of self-contradictions to tell a nonsense story, as we shall see later.