gibberish

Gibberish refers to speech or text that lacks intelligible meaning. It may consist of pronounceable syllables with no semantic content, or real words arranged in a way that is nonsensical or semantically inappropriate. The term is informal and descriptive rather than a technical category.

The word gibberish is an English colloquialism with uncertain origins; it has been in use since the 19th century to describe rapid, incoherent speech or writing. It is commonly employed to characterize speech that is obfuscated by speed, mispronunciation, or deliberate play with sounds, rather than by a failure of a speaker to know a language.

In linguistics and literature, gibberish is studied as a form of nonsense language. Nonsense words may obey phonotactic rules and even resemble the surface structure of real language, as in Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky, where syntax remains recognizable but much of the lexicon is meaningless. Gibberish is also used for humor, satire, or artistic effect. Related concepts include glossolalia (speaking in tongues) and jargon, though these terms carry different social or communicative implications.

Developmentally, babbling in infancy is a normal stage that precedes meaningful speech and is not considered gibberish in itself. In older individuals, sustained meaningless speech can reflect developmental or cognitive factors, and in some cases may indicate neurological or psychiatric conditions. In everyday use, gibberish often signals playful language, satire, or a deliberate obfuscation rather than a clinical diagnosis.

In culture and media, gibberish appears in comics, films, and music as a stylistic device. It is sometimes used as filler text or to convey mood without conveying literal content; lorem ipsum, while not true gibberish, is a widely used filler text that can resemble nonsensical language in layout contexts.