{"id":15395,"date":"2021-09-14T21:28:31","date_gmt":"2021-09-15T04:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/?p=15395"},"modified":"2021-09-16T09:33:29","modified_gmt":"2021-09-16T16:33:29","slug":"what-english-sounds-like-to-non-speakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/2021\/09\/14\/what-english-sounds-like-to-non-speakers\/","title":{"rendered":"What English sounds like to non-speakers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Kinda OT, I know, but I was intrigued by this attempt to use gibberish to let English speakers hear what the language sounds like to non-speakers. <em>All right!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Adriano Celentano - Prisencolinensinainciusol\" width=\"604\" height=\"453\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-VsmF9m_Nt8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Of it the New Yorker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/sasha-frere-jones\/stop-making-sense\">writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>The song lyrics are in neither Italian or English, though at first they sound like the latter. It turns out that Celentano\u2019s words are in no language\u2014they are gibberish, except for the phrase \u201call right!\u201d In a\u00a0television clip filmed several years later, Celentano explains (in Italian) to a \u201cstudent\u201d why he wrote a song that \u201cmeans nothing.\u201d He says that the song is about \u201cour inability to communicate in the modern world,\u201d and that the word \u201cprisencolinensinainciusol\u201d means \u201cuniversal love.\u201d\u00a0[&#8230;]<\/p><p>\u201c<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/-VsmF9m_Nt8\" target=\"_blank\">Prisencolinensinainciusol<\/a>\u201d is such a loving presentation of silliness. Would any grown performer allow themselves this level of playfulness now? Wouldn\u2019t a contemporary artist feel obliged add a tinge of irony or innuendo to make it clear that they were \u201cknowing\u201d and \u201csophisticated\u201d? It\u2019s not clear what would be gained by darkening this piece of cotton candy, or what more you could know about it: it is perfect as is.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Tired: Moves like Jagger<br>Wired: Moves like THIS EFFIN\u2019 GUY!! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Qdh0wBA2YI\">pic.twitter.com\/Qdh0wBA2YI<\/a><\/p>&mdash; John Nack (@jnack) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jnack\/status\/1434937328229699584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 6, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kinda OT, I know, but I was intrigued by this attempt to use gibberish to let English speakers hear what the language sounds like to non-speakers. All right! Of it the New Yorker writes: The song lyrics are in neither Italian or English, though at first they sound like the latter. It turns out that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15395"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15395"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15448,"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15395\/revisions\/15448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}