Comments on: What language is Jeff speaking in episode 5 of Coupling?

Question: What language is Jeff speaking in episode 5 of Coupling?

handee — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:15:31 -0800

Episode 5 The girl with two breasts from the TV series Coupling features a sequence where Jeff is speaking in a foreign language. What language is it?

I thought it was Italian, but when I showed the episode to some Italians, they laughed at me.

By: biffa

biffa — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:26:27 -0800

It says on that page you link to that he shouts 'breasts' in Hebrew. The actor and the character he plays are Welsh, could it be that? Difficult without hearing it.

By: rob511

rob511 — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:28:37 -0800

According to imdb's trivia page for "Coupling," it's gibberish.

By: handee

handee — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:30:41 -0800

It's definitely not Welsh (or Hebrew). If it is gibberish he made up on the spot then he's very good at coming up with language-like noises!

By: snarkle

snarkle — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:35:53 -0800

haha! I always thought it was gibberish!

Such a hilarious episode. I'm laughing just thinking about it :)

By: ceri richard

ceri richard — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:55:57 -0800

The clip is on YouTube. I'd say that it's very cleverly made-up Russian-ish language too.

By: Mayor Curley

Mayor Curley — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 04:35:16 -0800

The actor and the character he plays are Welsh, could it be that?

pedanticfilter: The actor Richard Coyle is not actually welsh. But he looks likes a welshman and does an dead-on accent, so I'll bet that you're not the first one to think it.

By: EarBucket

EarBucket — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 04:38:22 -0800

As you might gather from my username, I'm a big fan of this particular episode.

By: Harry

Harry — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 05:30:53 -0800

The girl was talking Hebrew, he was talking nonsense.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 07:19:29 -0800

Basically gibberish, with bits of Romanian and perhaps Italian mixed in. (Romanian, though a Romance language, has a lot of Slavic loanwords, which is why it sounds "Russian-ish.")

By: skepticallypleased

skepticallypleased — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 07:49:02 -0800

Babu is an Indian name -- formal and for affection. It probably was a mix of a lot of stuff.

By: ob

ob — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 09:02:27 -0800

I always thought it was Hebrew, but as I don't speak it I can't back up my claim.

By: handee

handee — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 09:06:44 -0800

The woman is definitely speaking Hebrew, but Jeff clearly isn't.

By: ob

ob — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 11:14:26 -0800

Yeah, I meant I always thought she was speaking Hebrew...

By: meerkatty

meerkatty — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 12:27:35 -0800

Oh god, I loved this episode. Hippo!

By: trinity8-director

trinity8-director — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 13:09:47 -0800

FWIW, when I was living in Sweden they had a guy on TV who could imitate languages. By that I mean he had the rythms, patterns, sounds and accents dead-on, plus a few minor words, but he never actually said anything (although a friend claimed to understand him perfectly). He would switch between English, Italian, German, French, etc. and it was very funny. Would love to see him perform again.

By: sixacross

sixacross — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 13:47:31 -0800

I caught bits of french in there. Mais, non, il y a, l'espace, etc., so I think the idea that he mixed a few languages together is sound.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 16:35:24 -0800

Agreed with the not Hebrew.

By: robcorr

robcorr — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 05:39:52 -0800

Cool, I never thought about it long enough to work out that it was gibberish. Now it's up there with Papa Lazarou's gibberish...

By: onlyconnect

onlyconnect — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 12:25:10 -0800

Gussets!