Dante has a passage in The Divine Comedy that means nothing but sounds like Hebrew. There is a good article about the song and its history in Atlas Obscura. The song was not a isolated feat but part of a long tradition dating at least to the middle ages. The eyes of the two Italians I was talking with lit up with amusement and recalled teen naughtiness at the memory. Although “Prisencolinensinainciusol” is complete nonsense clever Italian teens came up with a phrase in Italian that closely matched the sounds: presi in culo un etto di acciughe or “I took a pound of anchovies in my ass”. I’ve cornered several village friends to listen to it now and in my small sample of Italians and a Belgian all remember it fondly. The song not only reached #1 in Italy, but also in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. I think you should do yourself a favor and watch it. It’s that good, and the video version is oh so fabulously 1970s entertaining. That if we just listened a little bit harder it would all become intelligible. It is so effective that when John, Sebastian, and I watched the video we all had the same response - that it sounded so like English that our heads hurt because we were straining so hard to understand lyrics that were just out of reach. He performs it below with his wife Claudia Mori. In the 1970s Italy was fascinated by all things American and Italian entertainer Adriano Celentano created a song that sounds phonetically like American English but is complete nonsense. Drop everything and prisencolinensinainciusolĪ friend recently told me about an Italian hit song from 1972, called “Prisencolinensinainciusol”, and I am obsessed.
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