From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gibberish is a generic term in English for
talking that sounds like speech, but
carries no actual meaning. This meaning has also been extended to
meaningless text or gobbledygook. The common theme in
gibberish statements is a lack of literal sense, which can be
described as a presence of nonsense. The word may derive from the
word "jabber" ("to talk nonsense"), with the "-ish" suffix to
signify a language; alternatively, the term gibberish may derive
from the eclectic mix of English, Spanish, Hebrew, Hindu and Arabic
spoken on the British territory of Gibraltar, which is
unintelligible to non-natives.
The term was first seen in English in the early 16th century
[1]. A
common theory is that the word comes from the name of the famous
8th-century Islamic
alchemist, Jabir ibn Hayyan,
whose name was Latinized as "Geber", thus the
term "gibberish" arose as a reference to the incomprehensible
technical jargon often used by Jabir and other alchemists who followed.[2] A
second explanation is from the British colony Gibraltar (from Arabic Gabal-Tariq,
meaning Mountain of Tariq), whose residents frequently speak in
Spanish and English during their conversations. Gibraltarians will
often start a sentence in Spanish and switch to English halfway
through, making it difficult for non-locals to follow.
See also
References
- ^
Chantrell, Glynnis (2002). The
Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. pp. 231.
- ^
Seaborg, Glenn T.
(March 1980), "Our heritage of the elements", Metallurgical and
Materials Transactions B (Springer Boston)
11 (1): 5–19
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