Saturday, February 13, 2010

The Sound of English


Adriano Celentano, an Italian singer and comedian, sings his song Prisencolinensinainciusol. The lyrics are gibberish, but are meant to sound like English. It is a quite convincing attempt, and an English speaker's ears end up struggling to put the syllables together to form coherent words. Very odd.

It is from the post What English Sounds like to People in other Countries,  which has several other clips of people simulating the sound of English.

Another entertaining clip at that post is a woman, on the Bulgarian version of American Idol, singing Mariah Carey’s “Without You”. The phonetic subtitles of what she is actually singing are a hoot.

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