In the early hours of the morning, a TikTok video titled “Does Japanese with a California valley girl accent = Simlish?” popped up on my For You page. The algorithm knows me too well.
In the video, creator oyasumisushi tests the hypothesis by quickly studying up on the California valley girl accent (think Cher in Clueless or Elle in Legally Blonde), then speaking a few sentences in Japanese with the intonation. “Hajimemashite,” oyasumisushi says first, with the characteristic vocal fry and nasal sound of the valley girl. This translates to “Nice to meet you.”
The answer, y’all, is yes, it sounds exactly like The Sims franchise’s made-up language, Simlish. The video is brilliant, the internet is losing its mind, and it all sent me down a rabbit hole.
After reading way too many of the almost 6,000 comments on oyasumisushi’s video, I was led to yet another viral video from earlier this year. In it, creator lildummydev implores viewers to help them out, saying it’s two in the morning and they “can’t stop speaking French in a frat bro voice.”
“Qu’est-ce que tu vas faire, mon amie?” says lildummydev. This translates to “What are you going to do, my friend?” But with the addition of the slow, breathy articulation of a young man pledged to a college fraternity, it sounds, you guessed it, exactly like Simlish.
Nearly every single one of the over 5,000 comments on lildummydev’s video points out this fact.
“I love that adding a bro accent turns like 70% of languages into Simlish,” says the excellently-named user, silliest of all geese.
Another user, starborn, said: “pls do a valley girl French, it probably sounds like simlish too.”
To be fair, the valley girl accent and the frat bro accent do have a lot in common, as pointed out in a TikTok video by etymologynerd.
The etymology of Simlish is just as interesting: The Sims developer Maxis Studios originally tried to base Simlish on real languages such as Ukrainian, as noted by Polygon’s Ana Diaz in 2022. In the end, the majority of the made-up Simlish language came from voice actors watching character animations and improvising what they would sound like.
While Simlish is mostly gibberish, it is worth pointing out that Maxis was based out of Redwood City, California — and some of the voice actors could have traveled up from Los Angeles (perhaps with valley girl or frat bro accents) to take part in this process. Or maybe this is just a conspiracy theory my mind made up in the middle of the night while chasing the rabbit.
Regardless of where Simlish comes from, the whole thing gives Katy Perry — notorious for her valley girl accent — singing “Last Friday Night” in Simlish, and I am very here for it.
The post Ok, but why do certain languages spoken with American intonations sound exactly like Simlish? appeared first on Polygon.
