UCB Parents Advice about Teenagers
Talking Gibberish
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My daughter, almost 15, and her friends talk "gibberish", a kind of
English with sounds intersperced between syllables or consonants. They
speak it very fast and it sounds like another language. Occasionally
can I understand bits and pieces if I already know the context of the
conversation. The primary sounds are a hard "g" followth by a "th"
sound. Have other parents of teens heard this "language"? I know most
of what she says is of no interest to me, but I also know that sometimes
I would want to know what she's saying. My daughter is not entirely
trustworthy and I'm not comfortable with her having this degree of
privacy. I have told her it is rude to speak in the presence of others
so that they can't understand, but this fact doesn't bother her at
all. Comments and ideas would be appreciated. (July 1999)
It is rude. That's all. Save yourself for the big problems.
(7/99)
It sounds a lot like the secret language spoken to each other by a girl
and her cousin in the movie "Slums of Beverly Hills" that came out last
year. (not a bad movie by the way). My 3 sisters and I always had
secret signals and words that we talked to each other with, so our
parents wouldn't know what we were saying, but I had never heard that
funny-sounding staccato that was in the movie. It's on video if you
want to check it out!
Ginger (7/99)
Just means you need to learn the language!and the code breaker is...
place the syllables ithag in between the first letter of all the
syllalbes in a word. If a syllalbe starts with a vowel, use ithag in
front of it. Example: WHithagAT ithagARE YithagOU DithagO ithagING
Tranlsted means: What are you doing?
GithagOOD LithagUCK!
Kathy (7/99)
I too have trouble understanding what my 14 year old daughter is saying
a lot of the time. Part of the problem is that she talks "hecka
fast". I often ask her to just slow down. It's especially a problem
for the grandparents. But she wants to communicate with them so she
makes a special effort to speak more slowly.
As for the use of idioms, I enjoy hearing which new ones crop up. Of
course, when I was in school, like, we didn't , ya know, like use any
cool like words that like our square old man ya know didn't grog. But
like then we were just too far out.
It's been groovy
Later, babes.
(7/99)
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