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The Language Blog Ok More Info

The Language Behind the

Minions
July 29, 2015 / 3 Comments / in General Interest, Language Blog / by Richard
Brooks

Parents still reeling from the decimation of sanity caused

by the soundtrack to Frozen
[https://youtu.be/L0MK7qz13bU] will be all too aware of a
new plague, as the childless amongst us laugh
uncomprehendingly at their misfortune. It is known to a
generation as Minionese the virtually-incoherent
language spoken by those googly-eyed yellow chaps,
introduced to an unprepared world by the 2010 movie
Despicable Me. The internet is abuzz with Minionese-
English dictionaries; and this is exactly how it would have
started with Klingon, if there were high speed internet in
the 1970s. Should we fear, or embrace, this new language?

We may have little choice. Now they have become the stars
of their own self-titled, full-length movie, the Minions are
more inescapable than ever. In the movie we learn that
they have served many masters the world over, so it makes
a bit more sense that they couldnt be held to just one
earthly language.

Whats intriguing is
that the creators and
voices of the Minions,
Pierre Con and
Chris Renaud, havent
actually made up a
new language at all.
Minionese is in fact a
Frankensteins
monster of a
language, stitched
together from odd
phrases here and
there which will be
familiar to dierent people the world over. Gelato from
Italian means the same thing, ice cream, when said by the
Minions. The Minions word for thank you, terimakasi, is
borrowed from Indonesian. Para ti is for you in
Esperanto (itself a mish-mash of other languages),
extremely close to the Minionese para tu. Its also why
those parts of the world acquainted with curry will laugh
for both recognition and absurdity when the phrase Open
sesame is replaced with Poulet tiki masala!, a rough
approximation of the most popular curry in the UK, chicken
tikka massala.

This is bound to have a mildly disconcerting eect on a

grown-up audience, bringing back my baleful memories of
when a high school teacher thought it would be a great
end of term treat to watch a movie in French without
subtitles. Of course, for the Minions movies prime
audience of pre-teens this only adds to the hilarity, and it
surely would have been more confusing for the characters
to speak in an entirely unrecognisable nonsense language.
But with a critical eye and quizzical eyebrow raised, it
behoves us to be grown-ups and ask: how are we actually
supposed to understand this gibberish?
Well, there is a way. Like any language, the inection or
tone of voice used by the speaker carries as much meaning
as the words themselves. This is why our brains from a
young age can usually gure out whats going on between
characters in lm and television even with the sound o. In
studies of non-verbal communication carried out by Dr.
Albert Mehrabian and expounded in his book Silent
Messages [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Silent-Messages-
Implicit-Communication-Attitudes/dp/0534000592] , it was
found that only 7% of meaning is expressed through the
words spoken, leaving 93% for vocal intonation, facial
expression and body language. Since the Minions come
from a series of movies aimed at kids, to understand
Minionese, itll mean as much to observe body language
and tone as it would to try to make out every word.

The movies directors, Con and Kyle Balda, have said as

much the language isnt gibberish as such, but a
collection of funny-sounding words from around the world.
As Con has explained, Minionese is made up of Funny
words, like in the Japanese language, and the Korean
language, Chinese, Italian and mix everything up to make
this very special language that they have. This makes
sense; some words and sounds, like gaseous bubbles in a
bath, are intrinsically funny in any language. Appropriately,
a great deal of Minionese originates from toilet humour.

And, we must reluctantly conclude, if Minionese is simply a

way of bringing together all of the laugh-inducing terms,
noises and tics from native tongues all over the world, then
the Minions are bringing us something a hell of a lot more
useful than Esperanto. It might even catch on. So lets
embrace the nonsense. I say to the Minions, and their all-
too-imitable new universal language: tulaliloo ti amo*!

Minionese-English Phrasebook
I know you wanted one so heres your cut-out-and-throw-
away phrasebook.

Bello Hello
 Poopaye Goodbye

Baboi Toy

Guoleila Come over here

Madoca (or Me want Hungry

banana)
Open sesame!
Poulet tiki masala
Watch this
Speta
Hurry up
Haiyaku
Beautiful/hot person
Papagena
Cheers!
Kanpai!
Fart
! 300
Puarto
Oops!
" 1 O poop!
Thank you very much

# 5 Terimakasi wee woo wee woo (to

Fire! imitate a siren)
$ 3
Butt no English translation
% 181 required!

*We love you!

! 300 [https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.k-international.com/blog/th
" 1 [#] # 5 [https://plus.google.

Tags: fantasy languages, Funny, Language, Minion

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3
REPLIES

lisa peterman
September 16, 2015 at 12:08 am

I found the most known minion words

here.

http://www.z-x.com/minions-banana-
language-translated/

Reply

Andy Smith
May 9, 2016 at 1:26 pm
 I *thought* it sounded like Esperanto
when I saw the movie!

By the way, to say that only 7% of

meaning is expressed through the words
spoken etc is taking Mehrabians work
way out of context so is rather
misleading:
http://coachingleaders.co.uk/7-38-55-the-
facts/

Reply

Halinka
October 27, 2016 at 9:49 am

I want Nederlands
Grrrr ! ! ! " " "

Reply

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