Within the early hours of the morning, a TikTok video titled “Does Japanese with a California valley woman accent = Simlish?” popped up on my For You web page. The algorithm is aware of me too properly.
Within the video, creator oyasumisushi checks the speculation by shortly finding out up on the California valley woman accent (suppose Cher in Clueless or Elle in Legally Blonde), then talking a number of sentences in Japanese with the intonation. “Hajimemashite,” oyasumisushi says first, with the attribute vocal fry and nasal sound of the valley woman. This interprets to “Good to fulfill you.”
The reply, y’all, is sure, it sounds precisely like The Sims franchise’s made-up language, Simlish. The video is good, the web is shedding its thoughts, and all of it despatched me down a rabbit gap.
After studying method too most of the virtually 6,000 feedback on oyasumisushi’s video, I used to be led to one more viral video from earlier this 12 months. In it, creator lildummydev implores viewers to assist them out, saying it’s two within the morning they usually “can’t cease talking French in a frat bro voice.”
“Qu’est-ce que tu vas faire, mon amie?” says lildummydev. This interprets to “What are you going to do, my good friend?” However with the addition of the gradual, breathy articulation of a younger man pledged to a school fraternity, it sounds, you guessed it, precisely like Simlish.
Almost each single one of many over 5,000 feedback on lildummydev’s video factors out this reality.
“I like that including a bro accent turns like 70% of languages into Simlish,” says the excellently-named person, silliest of all geese.
One other person, starborn, mentioned: “pls do a valley woman French, it most likely appears like simlish too.”
To be truthful, the valley woman accent and the frat bro accent do have quite a bit in widespread, as identified in a TikTok video by etymologynerd.
The etymology of Simlish is simply as fascinating: The Sims developer Maxis Studios initially tried to base Simlish on actual languages similar to Ukrainian, as famous by Polygon’s Ana Diaz in 2022. Ultimately, nearly all of the made-up Simlish language got here from voice actors watching character animations and improvising what they might sound like.
Whereas Simlish is usually gibberish, it’s price declaring that Maxis was based mostly out of Redwood Metropolis, California — and a number of the voice actors might have traveled up from Los Angeles (maybe with valley woman or frat bro accents) to participate on this course of. Or possibly that is only a conspiracy principle my thoughts made up in the course of the night time whereas chasing the rabbit.
No matter the place Simlish comes from, the entire thing offers Katy Perry — infamous for her valley woman accent — singing “Final Friday Evening” in Simlish, and I’m very right here for it.