Do you ever have a hard time understanding lyrics? For some songs, it could be because the language is imaginary.
Inspired by the release of what could be the final Sigur Ros album, Linguist Daniel Midgley looks at music in invented tongues on this episode of Talk the Talk.
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A very good Slate article on this topic:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2011/11/29/invented_languages_in_music_a_brief_history.html
Hildegard von Bingen was an early writer of music and a conlanger
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/hildegarde.asp
Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five with “Heebie Jeebies” — from 1926, it’s one of the first scat songs ever recorded.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksmGt2U-xTE
http://www.scaruffi.com/history/jazz1.html
Though Ella Fitzgerald’s “One Note Samba” is fun and very clever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbL9vr4Q2LU
Is it English, or is it gibberish? It’s Prisencolinensinainciusol — Oll raigth!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcUi6UEQh00
Liz Fraser of the Cocteau Twins talks about what she’s singing.
http://www.cocteautwins.com/html/dynamine/lyrics.html
Sigur Rós says Vonlenska (or Hopelandic) is “a form of gibberish vocals that fits to the music”.
http://thepriesthood.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/peter-rollins-on-sigur-ros-vonlenska/
