Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Gibberish

This video made the rounds on social media recently: a woman who can do the accents of different languages without actually saying anything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybcvlxivscw&feature=youtu.be

It reminded me of this toe-tapping song from 1974, which the singer wrote to mimic the way American English sounds to an Italian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMoK0focAFE&feature=related

And, in turn, all this reminds me of a verse of scripture that I had heard in childhood but learned more about in divinity school.

For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
   
line upon line, line upon line,
   
here a little, there a little (Isaiah 28:10-13, RSV)

In the original Hebrew, the words are probably nonsense syllables, mimicking a child’s talk, the way God’s Word would figuratively sound to a sinful people.  "Blah blah blah, yada yada yada," we might say.


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