What is Tom Waits saying in his song Kommienezuspadt? It sounds vaguely German, but as far as I can tell, none of it is real. Or what about Bill Hader as Italian media personality Vinny Vedecci? He sounds Italian, but it’s kind of a mashup of words pulled from recipe books and bad TV (think of Woody Allen’s Fabrizio in Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask).
There is something about a language, quite apart from its words and their meanings, that gives it a distinctive sound. It’s easy for English-speaking people to mimic Italian or Spanish or German without understanding the language. Presumably Italian or Spanish or German-speaking people can do the same thing in reverse, pretending to speak English even if they don’t understand the language. This may even account for the phenomenon of xenoglossy in exorcisms. Maybe possessed people are just pulling a Vinny Vedecci. (One of the signs of demonic possession is the ability to speak previously unknown foreign languages. See, for example, cases cited in Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun.)
Now here’s the puzzle: is it possible for English-speaking people to pretend to speak English using made-up English words? Or can people only do this when they’re faking a language they don’t understand? Give it a try. See if you can speak fake English. It’s harder than it sounds.