Adriano Celentano - Prisencolinensinainciusol
Why Hacker News recommends it
It comes up whenever threads touch on fake languages, accents, or gibberish that sounds plausible, and commenters like sharing it with people who haven't heard it.
What it is
A 1972 song by Adriano Celentano whose lyrics are nonsense syllables designed to sound like American English to non-English speakers. It is a rock and rap-flavored novelty track with a video.
Recommended by 6 HN commenters across 6 different months, 2016 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec SavantIdiot · 2021-12 · on “Fakelish – Fake English word generator”
Speaking of gibberish english: I know this has been on YouTube for 10 years, but there are always newcomers who haven't had their brain melted by it: [this video]
Recommends sangnoir · 2016-11 · on “How to Master an Accent”
There's a fantastic English-sounding song by an italian singer [this video] Prisencolinensinainciusol by Adriano Celentano. It hurts my brain when I try to pick out meaning from the phenomes.
Recommends Andrex · 2019-04 · on “Name one thing in this photo”
The song "Prisencolinensinainciusol" has a similar effect: it's meant to sound exactly like American English to non-native speakers, but is actually just gibberish. Works amazingly well. [this video]
Recommends Izkata · 2021-11 · on “Walmart pulls children's toy that swears and sings in Polish about doing cocaine”
For anyone who hasn't seen it before, here's a song by an Italian composer made to sound like American English, but since it only uses nonsense even English speakers can get a bit of a feel for what we sound like to others: [this video]
Recommends dr_dshiv · 2022-10 · on “How Wes Anderson Turned The New Yorker Into “The French Dispatch””
I love foreign fantasy representations of America. My favorite is the Italian music video of a high school class where they sing in made up English. [this video]
Recommends throw0101c · 2024-03 · on “Fans quitting Spotify to save their love of music (2022)”
I call your mis-understood English song, and raise you one song purposefully written to use fake-English sounding 'words': > The song is intended to sound to its Italian audience as if it is sung in English spoken with an American accent, however the lyrics are deliberately unintelligible gibberish with the exception of the words "all right".[8][9] Andrew Khan, writing in The Guardian, later described the sound as reminiscent of Bob Dylan's output from the 1980s.[9] > Celentano's intention with the song was not to create a humorous novelty song but to explore communication barriers. The intent was to demonstrate how English sounds to people who do not understand the language proficiently. "E
Cites developer2 · 2020-05 · on “AC/DC Song Made with a Markov Chain”
Hot damn, technology is catching up with humans' manual creations. Your video is reminiscent of Adriano Celentano's song "Prisencolinensinainciusol"[1]–whereby he created a song to represent what English sounds like to non-native speakers[2]. [1] [this video] [2] [LINK]
Cites danso · 2020-10 · on “What Chinese looks, feels and sounds like when you're from Korea or Japan (2009)”
Despite the title, there's not much commentary on how Chinese sounds to Korea and Japan. I was hoping for something like Prisencolinensinainciusol's supposed American-English-to-Italians: [LINK] [this video]