Thursday, December 17, 2009

Ching chang wing wong

From the time I realized that, "Ching chang, wing wong," was not exactly authentic Chinese, I wondered what noises children in other lands used to make fun of the noises we USians used to impart meaning to one another.

Prisencolinensinainciusol

This song was written in 1972, by the Italian singer Adriano Celentano, and is supposed to sound like English. The thing is, it does! Now I wonder if I recorded my hit single Ching Chong Wing Wong, and released it in China, would I get a bunch of letters saying (after a trip through Babel Fish) "Great song! But in the end what you say? I do not understand!"*

The answer is no, no I would not.

(Via BoingBoing)



*(Lame, normally double Babeling gives much more amusing results.)

1 comment:

Eliyahu said...

Dudes name is Adriano Celentano. He's been wildly popular in Italy for the past 30-40 years.

I too have always wondered what speakers of other languages think we sound like. I am especially interested in what children hear; this video's a bit too exact and practiced.