A history of music's fake languages 

The theme song from Skyrim. Believe it or not, but Bethesda actually crafted an entire actual language for their dragons in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The theme song is sung 100% in Dovazhul, a language which does not officially exist. Created solely for the game and not for any country, but when considering how freaking awesome it actually sounds, then it will not surprise me to see more people speak it in the future :)

The japanese band Kalafina sings songs in Kajiuran. Named after the composer of the bands music Yuki Kajiura. She also uses this "language" for soundtracks she composes for animes like Sword Art Online and Puella Magi Madoka Magika.

Awesome

2:07 That song is called Untitled 1 (Vaka) Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of Sigur Rós xD

And then there's Prisencolinensinainciusol

The Cocteau Twins singer Elizabeth Fraser used a made up language on her songs. A mixture of foreign words from recipe books. For years i tried to sing along to there songs, not knowing what the hell i was singing.

Though it's not really constructed by a band, per say, but I think the Dragon Language from Skyrim is a pretty fuckin cool language.

Glad you mentioned Magma, love them:)

The COIL song "Batwings (A Limnal Hymn)" has Jhonn Balance singing in "a language that only he knows" (Peter Christopherson) after the part in English. There's no mention that the language was bestowed unto him by ELpH while worshipping the glitch, so I'm forced to assume it was.

The Latin-esque babble in the Puella Magi Madoka Magica sountrack is in Kajiuran, named after its creator, Yuki Kajiura. The titles of the songs are in Latin, such as Credens Justitiam, but the lyrics are a very pleasing mashup of Japanese and Latin. For example, the first lyrics in the aformentioned song: "solti ola i amaliche cantia masa estia."

My favorite case of this was when Roadrunner Records decided to mix and match members of different bands to create the ultimate crossover album, but the lead singer of Type O Negative didn't like his group, so he sang in Vinnish. The fake language of the fake country of Vinland, where Villains come from.

Yoko Kanno frequently uses constructed language in her music. I recommend A Sai En from the Macross Plus soundtrack.

The original soundtrack for the video game Nier has a fictional language that sounds really beautiful (-:

Not musical languages, but my favourite constructed ones are mostly used in LARP'ing: Luporii, a language similar to Esperanto, but made so you could speak it with a wolf jaw instead of a human jaw (mostly used by werewolf LARP'ers) Blacktongue: Mostly used by orcs or uruks in LARP's, invented by Tolkien and spoken in the books and movies by Sauron, the ringwraiths and the uruk hai.

3:55 to 3:58 ... GIF of the ages!!

Don't forget Elizabeth Fraser's singing in The Cocteau Twins, an early Scottish dreampop band. Fraser's lyrics could best be described as melodic glossolalia

Having previously watched and enjoyed some of your videos, I came to this one just hoping to see "Sanomi" and "O Julissi" in there. Was not disappointed. Finally convinced me to subscribe once and for all, hehe.

I would like to see a metal band that uses Elven for lyrics.

You forgot songs written in one of Tolkien 's many elvish tongues.

has anyone mentioned mami's theme in mahou shoujo madoka magica? this is a link to the video (Mami's Theme (Credens Justitiam) with lyrics) where you can see the lyrics are sung in a different language called kajiuran, a mix of latin, japanese, and other european languages, and only the singer, yuki kajiura, can understand it. i'm not sure how many songs from the anime use this language, but i know the singer uses it in other songs they do. (got the info from the linked video's description)

Japanese music artist Susumu Hirasawa also made up his own language, of which was used in two of his songs, Sign and Aria. He says it combines aspects of Japanese, Latin, German, and Thai. I felt that he should've been mentioned in the video but he's not well known outside of the small fan group.

Ya know, re-watching this in 2017 with the newest installment of Nier having just come out I wonder what Sam would have to say about the language used in most of Keiichi Okabe's music.

I just subscribed. This is the best channel I've discovered in a long time!

You guys should check out Hymmnos, a made-up language constructed from several other languages for vocal songs in this Japanese video game series Ar Tonelico. From what I understand, it's basically a language of emotions through singing

Somehow you missed Yoko Kanno. I honestly thought that (aside from maybe Enya) she was the most famous example of someone who sang in a language she herself had constructed for the purpose of singing in -- particularly since, despite writing mostly for original sound tracks, she uses the same language in soundtracks for unrelated franchises spanning decades.

Esperanto, also in Red Dwarf as a main language for the ship.

Esperanto is also featured quite prominently in Blade: Trinity as the second-language of the fictional, borderline dystopian city it takes place in and it shows Hannibal watching Incubus while laid up recovering from injuries at one point.

I've made a few constructed languages of my own. Although my favourite one (Named Snǫæylvsk) is basically what happens when you combine Elfdalian, Proto-Norse, Old Norse, and Icelandic. A few others are a little more creative, like one that has a similar aesthetic to Mandarin Chinese, and another that is essentially a creole of Arabic and Italian with some Slovakian loan words (because why the hell not)

Some people have said "What, no Cocteau Twins," and I'm going to say that too, but I also want to add "What, no Dead Can Dance?" Lisa Gerrard often sings in a language that only she speaks.

Esperanto in my FFXI? Thanks, This Exists, you just broke my mind and changed my life. 7 years of playing that game with that theme and it was Esperanto the entire time.. Mind's not blown it's fucking vaporized.

Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance sings in a made up language, too. Also that Magma band with their cycle of prog rock concept albums about the humans fleeing Earth after an apocalypse is simply the most 70s thing I've ever heard of, ever.

is it just me, or every time he is speaking, the volume is lower? I hate to adjust the volume manually when it's changing between his speech and the excerpt clips.

Who is the Esperanto band at the end?

Glad this series is still being made. Happy to see Magma in there. another good musical one would be Ruins en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruins_(Japanese_band)

In Argentina, there was a very famous band (known as the "Argentinian Beatles") called "Seru Giran". The name comes from an imaginary languague conceived by the band, and their first LP contains photos that explain the meaning of some words used in the some of the songs. Some believe this use of made up words is because the band started recording its first album, and many other to come, during a extremely brutal dictatorial regime, that would censor, menace or straight up kidnap artist that protest against it. The "languague" itself is not very much developed, but your video reminded me of this case, and aside of that, i totally recommend anyone to give Seru Giran a listen (specially the album "bicicleta")

I would've liked to see you mention the Trollspråk language by the band TrollfesT. I was waitin' for it. Never rolled around. Still a great video though. I'm a conlanger (someone who makes constructed languages), so this video was quite delightful for me. :)

Kajiuran... by Yuki Kajiura I think... I mean, what ever does the lyrics in "Song of Storm and Fire" mean?

Dude what about loituma - ievan polka the finnish phonetic scatting verse at the end of the song made into the famous internet meme leekspin.

seriously, no hymmnos? someone back me up here, dayum

A group I think is also worth mentioning is Cocteau Twins. While I don't thing the vocalist really invented a specific language for the music, it's debated what she's actually singing because sometimes it sounds like a string of words from a bunch of languages and sometimes just carefully constructed non-words. Either way, great music.

How about Cocteau Twins and their weird gibberish lyrics (possibly strangely accented English)?

There was a point in my life where I tried to learn Esperanto just so I could brag about knowing two languages. Gave up after an hour though.

the anime scene has quite an interesting presence in this field.Yoko kanno/gabriella robin is an expert at confusing language entusiasts who hear her songs, because the she ofthen features things in diferent languages like "rise" wich is writen in rusian to "i do" in italian and then she also writes things like "Green bird" wich sounds lke it must be real but is a competly made up languae without a (as far as i know) real meaning/translation.

I always wondered what Sigur Ros was actually saying in their songs! Thank you ^^

Vangelis' "Conquest Of Paradise" from the "1492" soundtrack was adopted as the team anthem for the Canterbury (NZ) Crusaders of Super Rugby. I remember trying to translate the seemingly Latin lyrics to find they were in Pseudo-Latin, whatever that means.

@2:07, what song is that?

You also could have add up to Yoko Kanno that in some of her works she crafts fictional languages, for example in A Sai En in Macross Plus or The Borderline in tha same series being Borderline a fictional lenguage that borros elements from japanese and french

What's the name of the Esperanto band at the end?

What's the Magma song at 2:48? I'm having a hard time finding it...

interesting video! surprised there was no mention of Cocteau Twins though

1:15 what is the name of the song

okay i know this is old as heck, but there's this one song in this one made up language that was the ending song for the Anime Aquarion, only really known as The Aquarion Lullaby. It does have a translation, but it starts with "Halta de Manna" so search either of those, you might find a video with a little fox. That's... yeah that's what you'll wanna watch

I can't believe that you did all of this research and found no trace of the cockteau twins.

lojban is probably my favourite constructed language, however I did create my own over the course of my middle school years that I called iveh, which was sort of a mix of english, dutch, japanese, chinese, spanish, and a bit of it's own stuff.

didn't elizabeth fraser of cocteau twins come up with her own language that's commonly used in cocteau twins songs? or at least manage to reduce the english language into fragmented, seemingly unrelated words?

Simlish in The Sims OSTs, but that's basically jiberish.. cool jiberish.

I really enjoy the song "Prisencolinensinainciusol."

Special mention to "Enemy of the State" by Roadrunner United, lyrics by Peter Steele (Type O Negative). It's based on some kind of Slavic language, but damn, Peter sang it like he meant every word. He passed away from heart failure a few years later. Nobody will ever know what those lyrics meant to him.

Recently I learned about a fake language called Kagiurago, made by a Japanese song artist name Kagiura Yuki. It's really interesting, a song called "Believing in justice"( or Mami's theme, which is from Madoka Magica a great anime) which is a really good song using the language.

What about "Chaccarone" from Andy's Val Gourmet? I heard that was total gibberish as well.

Those vocalisations that Bjork often alternates with English in her songs aren't Icelandic, people often think they are but they aren't, not sure if they are even supposed to be words, there are songs by her that are completely in Icelandic but pretty much any song where she switches between English & something that isn't English it's actually complete gibberish, some people have called this "Bjorkish" or "Bjork's magic pixie language". Also the song Q-mart she did for 808 State is completely this form of gibberish.

The album "Makara" by E.S. Posthumous. Unless I'm mistaken, every song on the album is in an imaginary language in which each word was deliberately chosen to NOT be a word in any existing language, and to give the music a general Tolkeinian fantasy vibe. RIP Franz.

Is there any band that use Lapin? (The language the rabbits speak in Watership Down) I know about the awesome band Fall of Efrafa, but they only name some songs and their Albums in Lapin, they never wrote a whole song in Lapin.

whats the name of that sigur ros song?

I'm quite fluent in Buffy.

Check out the Traumae language by Devine Lu Linvega. Not only is Devine a great musician but also a very astute linguist.

Kobaian does have some syntax, the lyrics have been translated into other languages.

the dude at 3:10 looks like he's knocking one out ..

Yessssss. This is so up my alley I liked this video 100 times over in ma' head. I wouldn't call the single-song examples like the Belgian eurovision peeps a constructed language. To many Linguists that would just be Gibberish but I would probably classify it as something like "Asemic Language". Sounds that appear like language but contain no meaning for the purpose of art. The listener can assign what meaning they wish to it. Like Asemic writing. Super cooooooooooooool I came here via BlinkPopShift and I'm here to stay. Rad channel!! :D

Dude, Cocteau Twins? Honestly, they're the most chilled out of them all - it's like you remove all the nauseating elements of Enya and get drugged-out stoner jams with a beautiful glossolalia, it's fuckin amazing

What about TrollfesT? They write their lyrics in Trollspråk which is mix of norwrigan and german.

If I remember correctly, the soundtrack of the anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica have some songs in which the vocals are just gibberish that mimics the sound of latin.

As an American obsessed with Eurovision. Thank you for talking about Eurovision in this video and in your Deaf Rappers one too even if it was very brief. It's not everyday I ran into Eurovision references.

I love Magma and Christian Vander. Their music and his genius are so amazing.

i thought afrikaans was a pretty goofy language until i figured out that its of Dutch origin. jack parow, die antwoord, and even Seether are from south africa but music is music.

1:15 song?

You could do 10 episodes on Eurovision alone. The voting blocs, the diplomatic tensions. There's so much stuff in there.

Alright, there's the Cirque du Soleil troupe uses to sing Cirquespeak. Its fascinating and had me thinking it was either some weird form of Spanish or Italian.

Nosfell is a french artist that mixes english, french and his own language to create concept album where he presents himself as ambassador of a fictional country. I recommend the earliest albums

In the Sim's games the made up language "simish" I think its called, they have their own vocal music on the radio in the games(a few different genres), not to mention black eyed peas performing their songs in simish for the Sims game "urbz"

How about composer Yoko Kanno? You also have DEAD CAN DANCE, which sing in glossolalia. :)

What's that second Magma song, because it sounds... interesting.

Well Kobaian is a language, the Christian even made like a dictionary about it and explained the languages roots and phonetics. I feel that Zeuhl music (which is what Magma and the other bands that sing in Kobaian are called) is kind of interesting. Magma, koenjihyakkei, univers zero, shub niggurath, ruins and probably tons of other groups have a real interesting avant garde kind of prog rock jazz fusion to them that just screams awesome to me.

Whatever is the language talked about around 1:25 is actually how we, French people in general, at least where I live in Canada, describe music, having Si instead of Ti, but is bascially the same and is still used. At least, that's what I used to learn music, instead of A to G, that we use when we play the guitar.

There's now a song recorded in John Quijada's language Ithkuil. Kaduatán - Ozkavarkúi.

Great shirt; Wasn't expecting to see that here

the tv chanel who aird the video at 4:27 svt (sverigestelevision(swedenstelevision))

Someone should GIF 3:56. for the lulz

Sometimes I listen to Cocteau Twins and get so confused I have to read the lyrics and play the song at the same time for it to make sense.

The Japanese band Polysics often has songs that consist of mostly gibberish. I seem to remember the (also Japanese) band Peelander-Z having their own constructed language since they claimed to be aliens from Planet Peelander, but it's been years since I was into Japanese music and I'm having trouble finding any information about them singing in a fake language so I might be wrong about that. Polysics, though? Definitely.

There's also anime soundtrack artist Yoko Kanno's invented language. If you want to hear a (beautiful) example, look up "Ghost in the Shell cyberbird".

I'm so happy Magma made this episode

The Cocteau Twins usually sang nonsense lyrics. Though their later albums have Frasier throwing in phrases about love and children (she had just given birth to her first child).

Midna and Fi from the legend of zelda series had both ´voices'. Since you could read on the screen what they said , im now wondering if it was cool sounding gibberish or actually following perhaps the japanese grammar with which i assume their scripts was created. O well. Mystery.

I like the idea of a language using music. However to make it more complex use all 12 tones, hell maybe use 24 tones including 1/4 tones as well. But instead on solfege syllables use only tones and musical intervals to convey words and emotion. Kind of a long shot, but I've always thought about it. This video goes into that idea further.

Hopelandic sounds awesome. It's what Sigur Ros sings in.

The Danish rap group Ikscheltaschel, only made made songs in a language they created while on boarding school. Unfortunately they haven't made much, but the little they made were pretty good. The language sounds a bit like Dutch

Blasted Mechanism have their own invented language as well (which kinda sounds like russian) and they also created some instruments like the 'Kalachakra' and the 'Bambuleco'. They're a portuguese band, btw.

I love Sigur Ros because I can listen to their music while studying, without getting distracted by words and meaning.

How's about krakon, used on the album Aina.