Gibberish Translator

Remember that kid on the bus who could rattle off nonsense at full speed? Same trick, real rule. Type English and this gibberish translator stuffs idig in front of every vowel sound. Paste the result back and the idigs fall out.

What Is the Gibberish Language?

A playground game, that's all. Idig goes right before each vowel sound. Two beats in hello, two idigs. Your little brother hears noise. Your best friend hears every word.

English	Gibberish
hello	hidigellidigo
yes	yidiges
no	nidigo
this is geta	thidigis idigis gidigetidiga
i love you	idigi lidigove yidigou
my friend	midigy fridigiend
banana	bidiganidiganidiga
apple pie	idigapple pidigie
queen	quidigeen
see you later	sidigee yidigou lidigatidiger
what's for lunch	whidigat's fidigor lidigunch
don't tell mom	didigon't tidigell midigom

Which Gibberish Is This?

There's no single version, and that's the charm of a game that lives on playgrounds. Wikipedia files a whole family of these games under the Gibberish name. I went with the idig rule, also called Geta, as it's the easiest to say out loud and it's the one people search for.

Game	Rule	hello becomes
Geta (this tool)	idig before each vowel sound	hidigellidigo
Length version	itherg, itug or idig by word length	hitugellitugo
Ubbi Dubbi	ub before each vowel sound	hubellubo
Pig Latin	first sound moves to the end, plus ay	ellohay

Grew up on Pig Latin? We've got a Pig Latin Translator for that too. Your version might have used ithag or iddle. Every playground drifted its own way. Wikipedia's entry lists Ubbi Dubbi, Bicycle and Swedish Allspråket together as one family, because all three push a code syllable in front of each vowel sound. Its example line, this is geta, was my first test, and mine matched until the last word, where their entry slips in a tig.

Pig Latin sits outside that family, because it moves the first sound to the back of the word and adds ay, so ixnay got into everyday English while nobody has ever borrowed a word from idig. The length version on that list is the fussy one, with itherg for words up to three letters, itug up to six and idig for anything longer, and I skipped it because you'd need to count letters in your head while you talk. Hungary has a version called bird language, which repeats each vowel with a v, so the word latok comes out as lavatovok, and Turkey plays nearly the same game with a g.

Can You Translate Gibberish to English?

Only this kind. The box pulls the idigs out and you've got English. Keyboard mash? asdfgh never held a word. A garbled email full of symbols is a broken file. Any site claiming to read those is making it up.

What Broke When I Built It

Three words in the first test run. You came back unchanged, as my code took the y for a vowel, then skipped the o beside it. Yes did the same. Queen turned into qidigueen, which nobody can say, since that u is really a w sound. Silent e I caught before testing. Make has one beat, so one idig.

Words like don't went fine. The mark in the middle acts as a wall, so you get didigon't. Numbers stay put. Capitals took a second look: Apple has to keep its capital up front, so you get Idigapple, never idigApple.

Typed	First run	Now
you	you	yidigou
yes	yes	yidiges
queen	qidigueen	quidigeen

English spelling still wins sometimes. Lion and area still trip it. Two vowels, two sounds, one idig. Splitting those needs a sound dictionary, and this page runs on a rule that fits on a napkin.

Y inside a word counts as a vowel. Happy ends in idigy. My turns into midigy. Half-coded note? The idigs come out and the rest stays.

How to Speak It Without Tripping

Go slow. Hello is h, idig, ello. Say your own name ten times first. Your mouth already knows that one. Whisper it on the bus. Fast talkers often slur idig into something like iddy, and nobody in the game will mind. Long words are where beginners stall, so split them into beats on paper once, and your mouth will remember the pattern by the third or fourth try, right about when your family starts asking you to stop.

Improv has its own game, and it's not this one. Nonsense from one player, a fake translation from the other, and no rule at all.

More secret talk? The A1Z26 Cipher Translator suits written notes. Wikipedia's language game article lists dozens from around the world. Everything else? The translators page.

Gibberish Questions, Answered

Is gibberish a real language? No. It's a playground game, and Google Translate doesn't list it either.

How do you speak gibberish? Say idig before each vowel sound. Hello is hidigellidigo, and it'll tie your tongue for about a day.

What language is gibberish based on? Whatever you already speak. Sweden has its own version. In English, Ubbi Dubbi's a close cousin.

How do I translate gibberish to English? Paste it in. Mine comes straight back as English. Keyboard smash won't, as nothing was ever in it.

Is there a gibberish translator with voice? Not here. It's text only, so reading it aloud is your job, and that's the fun part anyway.

What does idig mean? Nothing at all. It's just a sound that's easy to repeat, which is why it stuck.