What is this language game my daughter and her friends speak?

I heard my 14-year-old daughter and her friends talking to each other using a word-changing language game, like pig latin, but much harder for me to understand. I asked my daughter's friend to say something and I recorded it.

Listen here

She said it was called Finglish but a Google search makes me think she is either mistaken or tricking me. Can you tell me what it's called and what the rules are? I think it involves adding a lot of F's in between syllables.

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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http://www.butifandthat.com/ Aaron Geiger

My wife and her friends have a made-up language that is still indecipherable to me; it involves spelling out words, ending each consonant with “op” and speaking out the vowels. “Boing Boing” would sound something like this: “Bop, oh, eye, nop, gop, bop, oh, eye, nop, gop.” But they can speak it *very* fast. I can try to get a sound sample of her speaking it if you want.
- Labbit
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWMYReU_vvM
- Virak_Mac
  
  Very similar to one we used in middle school. We added “ong” to the consonants or consonant combos and spoke the vowels. “Shut up” would be “Song hong u pong u tong.” or “Shong hong u pong u tong.”
  
  “F— you” would be “Fong u cong kong yong o u.”To mix things up, we’d mix in “eng” and “ing.” So, “stupid” would be “Song teng u ping I dong.”
  
  The adults became so angry they outlawed it at our school.
  
  Wong a nong keng e ring song!
  - solitaire
    
    I bet that sounds really racist.
    - Virak_Mac
      
      Possibly. In fact, I remember some kids referring to it as “Chinese.”
      
      Completely racist.
      
      Because every idiot knows that Chinese is all like “Ching chong moo goo gai pan” and stuff.
  - http://www.facebook.com/rheaball Rheannone Ball
    
    Hong e long long o!
    
    hong o wong i song i tong hong a tong??
    Mong e u song e dong song pong e a kong tong hong e song a mong e long a gong u a gong e
  - DrDave
    
    Shouldn’t that be “Song hong u tong u pong”?
    - Virak_Mac
      
      Yes.
- http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios
  
  I’d like to hear it. The one Mark posted sounded like glossololia to my ears!
asidorenko

I haven’t heard something like this since primary school. They called it “speaking in jargon”.

I never understood it, but it did involve adding letters between syllables.
Bryn Mosher

Sounds like it’s related to “Ob”. In Ob, you place an “ob” before every sounded vowel. Example:

“Hi. How are you doing?”
“Hobi. Hobow obare yobou doboobing?”
- Mister44
  
  So this is what Mushmouth from Fat Albert spoke?
  - EH
    
    Mushmouth’s were between words.
- Ghost OfTyrone
  
  Robight obon thobeh nobose, Brobyn. Sobo strobange, ObI wobas jobust spobeakobing obOb tobo mobysobelf thobe obothober dobay wobith oban obItobialoban obaccobent fobor thobe fobun obof obit. Gobo fobigobure.
  - Bryn Mosher
    
    Thobank yobou. Yobou obare oba moban obof dobeep knobolobedge. Hobappoby Obobobing!
- http://ok-cleek.com/blogs cleek
  
  we used ‘Op’, in my school.
  
  put ‘op’ after every consonant, say the vowels unmodified.
  
  I top wop a sop fop u nop!
satn

You’re just old, sorry man.
- norembo
  
  you can’t let the little pricks generation gap you.
TheCakeBreaker

“uf” or “if” are inserted into words before every vowel sound. Ubbi dubbi is similar, but with “ub” or “dub” before vowel sounds instead.
http://www.mynameislaurak.com Laura K.

I’m pretty sure it’s just an “f” in front of every sounded vowel. Same as “arbish,” which is the same concept as what Bryn described.
gadfly

Main rule appears to be adding a “feh” sound after vowel sounds, maybe the only rule. Easy to isolate “gofeh tofeh schoofell afet Cafempbefell Hafell” at the end.

EDIT: in which case, efenglifesh might be a better name. good luck googling that one!
egeus

I’ve heard somethinglike this before as a kid in Finland. The girls used it in school to keep the boys from understanding. The way they did it (and I think it is the same here) is you insert an extra syllable after each syllable So(f0) you(fu) e(fe)nd u(fu)p ta(fa)lki(fi)ng li(fy)ke thi(fi)s.
- thatbob
  
  Some folks are saying that you put the “f” sound before a vowel, but IMO it is much easier to speak this type of language rapidly if you echo the vowel sound back with the “f” in front of the echoed part, exactly as you do here. I was quite fluent in this, but with “b” instead of “f,” in high school. It’s essentially what Cosby uses in his “Dentists” routine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBqY6cJD3CE
  
  But I like how switching it to “f” makes it sound like the hiss and hush of an audio tech glitch, like wind in the microphone, or a wobbly tape deck head. I may have to practice this just to mess with some teens at the library! :P
  - http://twitter.com/michiexile michiexile
    
    This sounds like exactly what’s going on here — duplicating each vowel, with a newly introduced /f/ sound in the middle.
    
    Thufus ifiit wifill soufound sofomefethifing lifike thifis.
- D H
  
  Yeah, we have that exact same wordplay in Mexico too!
Swampdog

My little sister used to do what they called “op talk” which has been previously mentioned. I was way too grown up and sophisticated by then to actually bother learning it myself. Googling “op talk” comes up with
OP-Talk
This isn’t a real language but, I read it somewhere: “Frog” becomes FOP-ROP-O-GOP. To learn how to speak OP-Talk just spell out the word and after every consanant add the word OP and for a vowel just say the letter.
- http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
  
  Hmm. If the base is a ‘real’ language like English then any derivative constructed from it by algorithmic production (unlike the ‘unreality’ of, say, Esperanto) must be no less a language, but needn’t be ‘real’.
  
  Nice.
  - DMStone
    
    Nope. This is a sort of crypto-constructed language, but not a language per se. A language, by the standard linguistic definition needs a speaker born into it learning it as their first language and a cultural identification that what they speak is their language.
    
    Think of the difference of a pidgin and a creole. Or the quote my professor always gave, “A language is a dialect with an Army and Navy.”
    - http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan
      
      I think the already conceded unreality bit takes care of your objections.
    - http://twitter.com/magicpeacelove PeaceLove
      
      The “language vs. dialect” quote is generally credited to Max Weinreich: http://goo.gl/wyY4S
Onnena Victoriana Steam

I used to do this with my friends in high school. We had different forms. The general rule was to add a syllable before each pronounced vowel or diphthong. So, in “uffian”, “Mark” would be “Muffark” and “Boing Boing” would be Buffoing Buffoing”. The more you practice, the better you get, and the better your ear is trained at disregarding the repeated syllable and hearing the content of the message.
insert

As others have said, seems identical to what I learned as op-language, but for the inserted syllable — “fi” here. Different from how others have described it, in the version I learned, the speaker adds “op” before every vowel.

E.g.

Mopy nopam opis opinsopert. (My name is insert).
Moponopopopolopy (Monopoly)
http://iynque.com Andrew Williams

Sounds similar to ubbi dubbi to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubbi_dubbi
http://www.facebook.com/mollyclendon Margaret Louise Clarke

My parents, born in early 1900′s, spoke a language called “Tutalo” It is similar to one Aaron described. “Tut, rar, a, cuck, tut, e, rar” is “Tractor”. We learned about it but never learned to use it. One of the tricks that works to give users privacy is the speed they can get.
Ira Chaplik

For those who are nearing or past 50, you may remember the old early 70′s TV show “Zoom”. On that show, they would speak in “Ubbi Dubbie”, which (as TheCakeBreaker noted above), is essentially the same.
- Mark_Frauenfelder
  
  Do a Zoom Do!
- Lilah
  
  Zoom still exists (or at least it did in the late 90′s/early oughts) and they still use Ubbi Dubbie. Everything old is new again.
  - http://profiles.google.com/substancemcgravitas Substance McGravitas
    
    Their site has a text Ububbubi Dububbubi trubanslubatubor.
- lewis_stoole
  
  this completely sounds like a variant of ubbi dubbi-ism
jamwin

My sister in law still does this at 30 and I’m sure it’s no less annoying now than it was back when she was in school.
Marius van Voorden

Actually, most comments are only partially right.

An “f” is placed after every vowel, and the vowel is repeated (phonetically).

So the first few words are:
“So today I went to school lunch”
and are pronounced
“Sofo tofodafay ifi wefent tofo schoofool lufunch”
She makes a mistake at lufunch, and corrects slightly afterwards.
She makes more mistakes along the way, making it hard to decipher.

Interesting words:
vifinefegafar chifips
coofookiefies
- http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino
  
  Whaaa?… I feel SO inept. There is no way in hell I could ever speak like this as fast and accurately as she did on the recording.
  
  She’s some kind of jargon-jitsu master… I hope Mark is a fast runner or he’ll get hurt!
  - solitaire
    
    This reminds me of the girl who can speak backwards fluently.
  - Richard Dagenais
    
    We greatly underestimate the mental flexibility of our young people and waste most of this crucial time in their lives on dumbed down education in the name of normalizing curriculum for the slowbies.
    - http://twitter.com/tueksta Andreas Beer
      
      it’s the mental flexibility of the brain itself, a simple replacement rule like vowel -> vowel f vowel is one of the more easy tasks for our neurons, you can learn it with a bit of practice in a few hours. compare that to the “waste of time” of learning latin for several years…
      - Richard Dagenais
        
        Yeah because my whole point was that what kids really need to learn is latin.
    - http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino
      
      I agree; what I’m saying is I don’t think I would have been able to do it this well even at that age.
      
      EDIT: Okay, I tried something similar in French and it’s a bit easier… I guess ‘pig latin’ comes more naturally in one’s mother tongue.
Thomas Hodgson

I was an Ob lad, but the weirder among us said ‘OLAFA’, which gets tedious. Who out there speaks Tutnee?
- http://twitter.com/slowtiger slowtiger
  
  An Ob lad? Like in Ob lad i, Ob lad a?
http://profiles.google.com/peterwok Peter Ellis

The variant I came across as a child was “egg talk” where yeggou
egginseggert eggan eggegg beggefeggore eggeveggereggy seggoundegged veggoweggel.
cstatman

Mark,

it is all part of her sekret plan, be careful when a box of quadrotor flying machines arrive for her. then? you need to worry.

Remember, you can still take her out for ice cream, and keep her happy.

:)
ronharris2

Like other here, I learned the “op” version of this in school in the early 60s. We knew it as “Oppish.” We actually learned it out of a Scholastic Book Club paperback It was harder for others to understand than Pig Latin, but if you listened long enough you could figure it out. When our schoolmates reached that point we had to cease making snarky comments in front of our enemies.
steve lodefink

come on and Zoooma Zoooooma Zooooma Zooooooom…

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zoom+ubbi+dubbi&oq=zoom+ubbi+dubbi
solstone

I remember as a kid speaking ‘Gibberish’, which is similar to optalk and others like it except that you add ‘theg’ after every syllable (for instance ‘hello there’ becomes ‘hethegellethego thethegere’). Parentals and other adults, even those familiar with pig latin and such, could never parse what we were saying.

Amazingly (to me anyway) I can still speak and understand this at full conversational speed. Weird. (Not that I often have opportunity or inclination, but still…)
- haypenny
  
  Oh my god, I just posted on the exact same thing as you at the exact same time…weird. Where did you grow up?
  - solstone
    
    Phoenix AZ. That is funny that we posted the same thing at the same time.
    - benher
      
      Not the same time, but I used the exact same version. Oddly, my cousin who taught it to me had just come back from a trip to Arizona
      O_O It must be evidence of intelligent design.
    - haypenny
      
      I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. Pretty amazing it had the same name and rules.
    - http://twitter.com/AwesomeRobot AwesomeRobot
      
      Grew up in Massachusetts, same thing, same name, same rules.
- http://twitter.com/wormhog wormhog
  
  methegee tuthegoo.
- Emma Beckman
  
  My cousins and I learned gibberish (with “theg”) from our fathers growing up and I can still speak and understand it, similarly. To make it really confusing my sister and I sometimes tried doing gibberish on top of pig latin (ethegellthegohthegay is hello) and every once in a while actually spoke a few words of French/Pig Latin/Gibberish! What a riot to see all these other, similar languages people have learned!
haypenny

We had a similar language we called ‘gibberish’ when we were growing up. Simply put ‘ithig’ in each syllable. I would like to go to the library – Ithgi withigould lithigike tithigo githigo tithigo thithige lithigibrithigarithigy. I’m not kidding – it’s surprisingly easy to tune into when you’ve had a little practice, and it has natural rhythm. Rhythigithm.
- http://www.tulgeywooddesigns.com Amphigorey
  
  That’s what we used, only we called it Goat Greek, to go with Pig Latin.
http://twitter.com/temptoetiam Abie

When it rains, it pours! I only just discovered those code langages quite recently: “Op” in The Big Bang Theory (as linked) and gibberish in Y-the Last Man (a comic which starts with the almost complete annihilation of male mammals, including men).
The sample principles apply in other languages too: in French for example (my mother tongue), there is a slang code called “javanais” (Javanese), that adds “av” to syllables. It’s not gender specific though, and quite dated.
Succint English WP page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javanais , more details on the French one.

This code is referenced in Serge Gainsbourg’s song “La Javanaise”, whose lyrics are so alliterative that it sounds like javanais http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duAk5um3B30
- Cave Johnson
  
  Oh, Y- The Last Man. Please don’t bring up that garbage, you’ll make me sick.
shannigans

Gibberish starts around 0:59
http://movieclips.com/cKMWT-slums-of-beverly-hills-movie-were-freaks/
Peter Park Nelson

I think Verlan, which I heard a bit of while studying in France during college, is even trippier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verlan
http://profile.yahoo.com/4H6UYM2ZW5END2NU57MDZSNNZY Art

it’s Fenglish: “The language where one combines the word ‘f**k’ with any other word imaginable by simply placing an ‘f’ in front of the word.” http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:P-uiMUoWfW8J:www.urbandictionary.com/define.php%3Fterm%3Dfenglish+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk
http://repeaterband.com skeletoncityrepeater

I definitely used the variant with lots of ‘B’ sounds when I was in grade school or junior high. ‘B’ or ‘F’, it is mysterious at first but then it’s pretty easy to understand and speak after a short while.
lectroid

Some of us merely past 40 remember it too.

Write Zoom! Box three five oh, Boston, Mass Ooohhh two ooone three fooouurrr

SEND IT TO ZOOM!

I discovered one of my managers back in the 90′s actually got his start as a production assistant and later, camera operator on zoom.
- Preston Sturges
  
  Was that the same as the “Up Talk” I used to hear at school?
  
  Zoom! was an interesting show because they seemed to aim it at tweens, which is a pretty narrow audience.
- faithnomore
  
  Zoom came on the air when I was about 9. I cannot even begin to express the depths of love and devotion I had for that show. Oh, and the f-talk thing; it’s just a variant on UbbieDubbie.
  
  (wanders off humming “…come on and zooma zooma zooma zoom…”)
  - burgerbuilders
    
    I knew I’d find an UbbieDubbie reference in this collection of geekery. : )
- terrycarroll
  
  Age 51. Still can’t get that mailing address out of my head.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    It’s better than Chicago 60609.
    - Marktech
      
      It’s better than Chicago 60609.
      
      Sounds like your equivalent of Keynsham, spelt K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M.
    - chgoliz
      
      Hudson 3 2 7 hundred.
http://twitter.com/rvitelli Romeo Vitelli

Am I the only one to remember the Jetsons and the episode with Elroy’s secret code? All that I can say to that is: Eep op ork ah ah

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=eep%20op%20ork%20ah%20ah
- noah django
  
  related:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QalWgriTPOo
caipirina

The things one has to get ready for when having a kid … maybe time for a BB parenting section?
yosemite

As others have said, it’s simply a reduplication of each syllable, substituting an [f] for the onset of the substituted syllable.

It’s in fact a very common language game across the world. “Farfallino” in Italian: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farfallino_Alphabet

Also called “jerigonza” in Spain and Latin America, but usually substituting [p] instead of [f].
- lava
  
  like the bananadana song? Fee fi fo fanna?
ROSSINDETROIT

In Catholic grade school we used Pig Latin a lot. This worked around the nuns because they knew enough real Latin to be confused by the similar sounding words. Then the metal rulers came out…
- http://twitter.com/HubrisSonic HubrisSonic
  
  [shudders]
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Pronouncing Latin correctly would have gotten around them, too.
  - Cefeida
    
    I always found it funny that Latin pronounciation varies depending on the speaker’s native language- I guess a dead language isn’t entitled to its own correct accent…I was very amused to discover Lully’s Te Deum, for instance, and that it just didn’t work so well if you tried to sing it without a French accent.
    - chgoliz
      
      Two main versions are Classical and Vulgate. Kind of like Mandarin and Cantonese.
jeligula

People have been doing the same for thousands of years, Mark. Chances are that your daughter and her friends are using something entirely idiosyncratic to them. You are nowhere near the first parent to encounter something of this nature. You can take comfort in the fact that they are very smart individuals and are not randomly speaking in tongues because they have Kool-Aid on the brain. Had you twin daughters, you would encounter a language that you could never hope to break.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_D55WI4DCGD37XCUHNBH7IVC5HQ Hollow
  
  Ah yes I knew this sounded familiar. I have twins and to be quite honest their first words were for each other rather then me or their father. :( To top it off, One’s first word was Strawberry, The other’s first word was chocolate. Not something you HOPE would happen. But I suppose all those books and time spent reading while I was pregnant with them did some good!
  
  But yes the word play between them baffled me, I could ALMOST make out a word here or there, but it was never to be, they only spoke half the time the other half was with their hands and making facial expressions. Right down to body language use at 2! I would watch them when they didn’t know I was looking and the intensity and diversity of their “twin language” was astounding. I always felt I was missing something. Still do.
- buddy66
  
  My sister had three kids packed in tighter than sardines. They spoke a language that was impenetrable to anyone else. Forty years later, they remember very little of it.
Richard Schneider

Does “speaking in tongues” fall in here somewhere?
Sutra

I never made up or played these kinds of word games but my best friend and I made up our own symbols for the English alphabet so we can pass encrypted notes in school without fear of our 8th gradey secrets and drama getting out.
- faithnomore
  
  Hahaha! You just made me recall that my best friend and I transcribed and memorized all of Tolkiens runes from The Hobbit for the very same purpose.
  
  Nerds!
creativehumanoid

F that shit.
brettjsnyder

Look up efenglifish
Take the vowel sound in each syllable add an ‘f’ and repeat the vowel sound again? So ‘e’ becomes ‘efe’ and ‘o’ would become ‘ofo’
Cat would be cafat
Carrot becomes cafarrofot
Vinegar becomes vifinefegafar

Brett
penguinchris

Everyone’s making it seem like this is something common and easy to do, but this is the kind of thing that I am not sure I’d be able to understand (much less speak) even with lots of practice.

I have a hard time understanding people speaking normally, though, sometimes (though I don’t normally have any trouble with heavy accents for some reason). Must be something to do with how the brain processes language. I’m not sure if I have Asperger’s or what, but I know I process speech differently than most people do.
- ROSSINDETROIT
  
  No, you’re probably normal. It’s just that what many people let come out of their mouths makes no freakin’ sense when parsed as English. Happens to me all the time.
travtastic

Your daughter is in a gang. I’m sorry.
- mothernatureseven
  
  Yes this is total gang talk. You must live in a large surburban area.
  - travtastic
    
    I know the mean street when I see it.
D Ellis

I think the linguists call them ludlings. So much fun!
Godfree

Katie katie bo-batie,
banana fana fo-fatie
fee fi fo-matie, Katie
Just look at it.
Senor Schaffer

Mark is parenting through his blog.

*returns Made by Hand*

I kid. I kid.

*ashes comically large cigar on ground*
Sofia Ortiz

In Mexico we call it “efe”, which literally just means “F”, and you do it by repeating each syllable but replacing the consonant with an F…
- Jennifer Ramirez Johnson
  
  Yes. I remember a friend of mine from Mexico teaching me the same thing. In fact, I still have a hard time calling her anything but Afamafadefeleefee (Amadeli)!
http://www.kmoser.com kmoser

When I learned this we knew it as “Egg Latin”. Or: “Wheggen Eggi leggearnegged theggis wegge kneggew eggit eggas Eggegg Leggatteggin.”
- Phillip Mitchell
  
  I use the same with my sister to this day, some 20 years later.
http://twitter.com/criminalcrafts Miss Demeanor

Eeep Op Ork Ah Ah- “That means I love you”!- by default, Mark has become George Jetson and the circle is complete
Guest

I laughed when I read this because it reminds of some guys from New Jersey who, instead of syllables or sounds, just put the word f+++ in front of almost every other word.
It’s not a very secret language either.
jkg

In 1981 my favorite song was Frankie Smiths “Double Dutch Bus” with tons of the Harlem “izzle”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK9hK82r-AM
http://twitter.com/Theonlygolux Theonlygolux

My friends and I used to speak Egg Language” which involved putting the word “egg” before every vowel sound, so “happy birthday” would become “heggappeggy beggirthdeggay.” We could speak it very fluently, and this Finglish of which you speak sounds like the same but with, as someone above said, uf or if in front of every vowel sound.

I can still speak Egg language and it distresses my wife no end.
strougly

As far as I can make out, this language is Gibberish (or maybe some variant thereof?). See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibberish_(language_game) .

I first noticed this from the movie in “Slums of Beverly Hills” when Marisa Tomei and Natasha Lyonne are talking to each other. See a clip of the language here (potentially NSFW): http://movieclips.com/6Fnz-slums-of-beverly-hills-movie-our-secret-language/

Where did your daughter learn it?
David Kurtenbach

Up with cryptology!
Ellinor Fägerstam

I’m from Sweden and here we have two major equivalents; Rövarspråket (the robber’s language) and Fikonspråket (the fig language).

Rövarspråket is easy to learn. You double every consonant and add an o in between. Nothing is done to the vowels. For instance, Boing Boing would be Bob-o-i-non-gog Bob-o-i-non-gog. I would say that almost every swedish schoolchild is familliar with it, but at least when I was in that age some ten years ago it wasn’t widely used.
Fikonspråket on the other hand is quite tricky and I have never really gotten the hang of it. You divide a word after the first syllable, co-|-ffee for example. Then you change the order of the two parts; -ffee | co-. Finally, you add fi- and -kon to the word respectively; fiffe and cokon. I don’t think many kids nowadays is familliar with this language, and it seems like a dreadful language to learn..
Frode Helland

Roremominondods mome ofof Rorøvoverorsospoproåkoketot!
http://www.facebook.com/nickdageek Nick Smith

We had a similar language to the Gibberish vid posted above by strougly.

At our senior school (Essex, UK, mid-80s) I believe it was called “uvvuguff”

I don’t know the exact rules of it, we all kinda just picked up as we went along, but it seemed that you added ‘uvvug’ into each syllable of a word, so:

‘The cat walked along the track’ became …

The-uvvu c-uvvug-at w-uvvugalk-uvvug-ed a-uvvug-l-uvvug-ong th-uvvu tr-uvvug-ack

You removed the ‘g’ at the end of ’uvvug’ if it made it difficult to say the word or it was too small …
Petzl

You muggles amuse me. At my school, we simply used Parseltongue to get around the teachers.
alissa mower clough

Meusarry. (Old-time Noo Yawkese, popularized by Murry the K.) Boudledge. (Conlang peculiar to the Mitford Sisters.) Your daughter. Just leaves in a tree.
http://www.falconlara.net oscarfalcon

Here we call it “speaking with the ‘eff’ “, it’s been around since I was in grade school, in my city.
thermidorthelobster

I’m pretty sure it’s Latvian.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1106551286 Timothy Stotz

A friend of mine’s little brother had a language he called Ilsneh, which consists of inserting -ilsn in front of the first vowel, except for articles or prepositions. A frilnsnend of milsnine’s lilsnittle brilsnother hilsnad a lilsnanguage he cilnsalled Ilsnilsneh, etcetera.
http://twitter.com/monorama Bef

It’s been used by children in Mexico for decades, and it’s called “Hablar con la efe” (to speak with the f). You have to add an f after every vowel sound while you speak. Hence, “Go to school” becomes “Gofo tofo schoofool”, and it sounds pretty complex when you first hear it but once you figure it out it’s pretty simple. I don’t know its origin, though, but it was used by my mom and aunt, who are now into their mid sixties.
http://twitter.com/susiebright Susie Bright

Mark, your daughter has a beautiful recorded speaking voice– audiogenic! And at her age, too…
http://twitter.com/bigbadchang Chang Terhune

Gurls are weeerd/
http://twitter.com/Shmuel510 Shmuel

A song with a Hebrew version won Eurovision in 1978. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-Ba-Ni-Bi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o-1nEVvdyw
mat catastrophe

Kids can learn this shit but don’t know a damn thing about anything useful.

/was totally one of those kids.
buddy66

I worked for a touring carnival over 60 years ago and learned “Carny” — which is preceding or interjecting “eyuz” per syllable. I bet they still speak it, the carnies do.
Nic Miskin

Here’s an example of a similar language (I believe the same but with “b” instead of “f”) tossed into a poem by Vancouver’s Grand Slam Champion: Olivia B

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzAEnk2BxW4&feature=youtu.be
She starts at 1:36
http://www.facebook.com/KenshinDenimDevil Präna Flux

That is easy You just have to say add an extra syllable unsing an f and the last vowel used every for every syllable in the word sofo youfu cafan speafik afas thefey dofoo. greetings from a happy mexicun.
anderalert

Saw the Zoom comments already and would also add that friends of mine had carney parents that taught them a secret language to use around the marks. Carnies….
eviladrian

I’m always intrigued by Mark’s parenting posts, they’re like signposts to the future of parenting in the online era. Crowdsourcing your kids’ secret code? By 2014 there’ll be a Mechanical Turk iphone app for that!

As an aside, I’ve noticed that girls nowadays seem to speak in a lower tone than when I were a lad, and the boys speak higher. Is this just my ears getting older or is the change real?
http://profile.yahoo.com/H753UAUX3ENS44BSFJ2VPYWQ2E Not displayed

No love for Ferb-latin yet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BipcTPNOBt0
johne2

Sounds like Carnival speak or “Carny”
megan finley

Also interesting from a language and vocal standpoint, her accent sounded VERY familiar to me. I reasoned that she must be from LA or the valley. And when she ended it with “and I go to Campbell Hall” it all made sense — that’s the high school that I attended.