To those examples of literary gibberish add another from Tolstoy, War and Peace, Book 2, Chapter 11 (tr. Louise and Aylmer Maude):
Sidorov, turning to the French, winked, and began to jabber meaningless sounds very fast: "Kari, mala, tafa, safi, muter, Kaská," he said, trying to give an expressive intonation to his voice.There are more nonsense syllables ("Tafa-lafa") in Book 3, Chapter 13; cf. also Aylmer Maude's note in that chapter:
The word German (németz) in Russian means a "dumb man"—one who cannot speak so that we can understand him.Related posts: