Simlish is a fictional language featured in Maxis' Sim series of games. It debuted in SimCopter, and has been especially prominent in The Sims and The Sims 2. Simlish can also be heard in SimCity 4, albeit far less frequently. It also featured to an extent in the Maxis game SimGolf. Designer Will Wright was conscious of the need for dialogue in the game, but thought that using a real language would make it sound too repetitive. Credit for "inventing" Simlish is given to voice actors Stephen Kearin and Gerri Lawlor, who worked on the original Sims game.

The Sims development team created the unique Simlish language by experimenting with fractured Ukrainian and Tagalog, the language of the Philippines. Inspired by the code talkers of WWII, Sims creator Will Wright also suggested experimenting with Navajo.

Simlish is almost completely improvised, and there are hardly any words with actual meanings; it is more concerned with using sounds to express gameplay-related emotions, and is designed to be understood, on that level, by a speaker of any language. However, the accent and delivery of the language often sounds Latin and possibly Italian, Czech, Dutch, Irish or Japanese—it does seem to be dependent upon the native language of the voice actor who improvised the line, not surprisingly. For example, one of the voices of the male elder has a decidedly Latin sound to it. Due to repetitions and of either phrases or contexts, some loose 'translations' are possible.

Despite it being entirely improvised, it does have a reasonably consistent sound. The vowels are more heavily emphasized than in English, which has more of a Latin sound to it. It is also almost entirely spoken with the front part of the tongue and mouth; ee (as in meet) and the letter y are commonly used, and there are few, if any, guttural sounds, thus adding to the overall "cute" feel of the game. Simlish could also resemble pig Latin, because of the use of these vowels.

Simlish words and phrases

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The following spellings and translations are official, having been published by Maxis:

Chumcha : pizza (possibly delivery, as it is also used when ordering Chinese food)

Dag Dag/Soon-soon : goodbye. (Dag Dag, by coincidence, can also mean "bye bye" in Dutch. But is pronounced differently.)

Nooboo : baby, which sounds similar to noobie, or noob, which are names for beginners in a game. Babies are beginners for life, which might have given the name nooboo.

Shooflee : In Sims 2 means labor, as in having a baby. Mother will scream this and wave her arms around.

Flibla : Means fire. In the original The Sims was interjected during a fire.

Music

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From the beginning, Sims have been able to listen to Simlish music on their cheap boomboxes, fancy stereos, or over loudspeakers as they shopped; since Hot Date, they have also heard music on wall speakers on Community lots.

In The Sims, Sims sing campfire songs. They are sung to the tune of "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain", "Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore" and "On Top of Old Smokey".

Curiously, of all songs in The Sims, one may provide a Rosetta Stone-type key to Simlish. On the Country radio station, one that contains lyrics sounding similar to "Slaggar, slaggar, slagger, slagger" is the exact same melody of a song entitled "Splatter" from Streets of SimCity's radio stations (the original is completely in English).

The Sims2(PS2) has more specific radio channels, such as Industrial, Nu Metal and Ambient Dub.

The Black Eyed Peas also contributed to the recording of Simlish hip-hop songs in Sims in the City.

Outside artists

For The Sims 2 expansion packs University and Nightlife, rather than creating unique Simlish music, recording artists cut new performances of their songs with Simlish lyrics. These artists include Dexter Freebish, Paramore, Abra Moore, Charlotte Martin, Da Riffs, The Daylights, The Perishers, Acceptance, Go Betty Go, Steadman, The Faders, Adam Freeland, Hyper, Junkie XL, Lemon Jelly, MxPx, Timo Maas and Trivium. The songs included in any one game depend on the localization.

According to Trivium singer Matt Heafy, whilst recording Like Light To The Flies for The Sims 2, he was given “a complete translation” by the Maxis team. Rumours abound as to whether this translation was word-for-word, or simply intended to convey the general idea of the song.

British synthpop band Depeche Mode recorded a Simlish-language version of their latest single Suffer Well for Open for Business.

Barenaked Ladies re-recorded three songs (Easy, What A Let Down, Wind It Up) from their upcoming album in Simlish included on the Family Fun Stuff pack (on the pop radio station).

Written Simlish

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Signs in The Sims games often do not contain text; they consist entirely of graphics. For instance, the stop sign in The Sims is a red octagon with a flat, white hand. In The Sims 2 it becomes a white bar instead. The sign for a grocery store depicts a cornucopia, and that of a restaurant shows a hamburger or a place setting.

In The Sims, the headline The SimCity Times is visible on the daily newspaper, in English and in the Comic Sans MS font. (The game uses this font, with the Simoleon sign (closely resembling §) as the currency symbol.)

In The Sims 2, most text is only distinguishable at very close zooms. On book covers, newspapers and Nightlife's "Sims Must Wash Hands" sign, the lettering is all nonsense characters that bear about as much resemblance to Latin characters as they do to Cyrillic. No actual characters from any known alphabet are used. When Sims are writing novels or term papers, dingbats from the Wingdings font appear as text on the screen. (They look strange, even from a distance, because they are blue on gray and because the font is monospaced.) Finally, the notebooks used for homework contain writing that appears to be composed of random lines.

The writing on police car doors reads: Yulhullie mud lapllahaduhil, roughly meaning "To Serve and Protect".

In The Sims 2, Simlish words occasionally appear on television screens. They are written in the same Simlish alphabet described above, or using the font Wingdings to produce symbols like Aum or Zodiac signs. In The Sims 2 University, "SimGreek Letters" appeared as decorative items, showing what seem to be the Simlish equivalent of the Greek alphabet-- the Simlish Greek alphabet is separate from the normal Simlish alphabet, though neither alphabet actually uses any real alphabetic characters. Each SimGreek character has a name, though a complete SimGreek alphabet is not represented. Although SimGreek letters can be purchased on a variety of lots, they are intended for "Greek House" lots (Fraternities and Sororities).

External links

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• The Big Simlish Dictionary (an unofficial Simlish dictionary put together by a user on The Sims 2's official website)
• Spot On: Simlish stylist Robi Kauker (an article on the Simlish music in The Sims 2: University)
• This page has a few songs in Simlish (official sims 2 site, scroll down until you see tunes )

Fictional languages | The Sims | Maxis Sim games | Gibberish language

Simlish | Simlish | Simikeel | Simlish | Simlish | Język simski