Man’s video revealing what English language sounds like to people who don’t speak it goes viral

A man has revealed what the English language sounds to non-English speakers, drawing confused reactions from TikTok users. 

TikTok user @languagesimp has shared that native English speakers sound like Sim – from the popular Sims video game franchise – to non-native speakers. 

In a clip that has been viewed over eight million times, he shares a short, nonsensical speech in order to demonstrate what the English language will sound like to anyone who does not speak or understand it.  

The video has left English speakers slightly puzzled, with one TikTok user  commenting: ‘I felt like I should understand what he was saying.’

A man has revealed what the English language sounds to non-English speakers, drawing confused reactions from TikTok users

TikTok user @languagesimp has shared that native English speakers sound like Sim – from the popular Sims video game franchise – to non-native speakers

A second added: ‘You are telling me people hear me talking like a Sim?’

Another wrote: ‘I feel like I understand what he’s saying, but I also don’t.’

A fourth person said: ‘This sounds right… but it’s not… ‘

This comes as researchers say that Multicultural London English (MLE) could become the dominant dialect in Britain over the next 100 years.  

The dialect is an amalgamation of languages from cultures outside of Britain. For example the greeting ‘wagwan’ (what’s going on?) was taken from Jamaican English.

MLE speakers largely have immigrant roots and have also replaced the Cockney dialect in working class areas of the capital meaning pronouncing your Hs could be back in style within the next 100 years.

The dialect initially took hold as immigrants who could not speak English or only knew it as their second tongue spoke in Patois, an English-based creole language with Jamaican roots.

University of Oxford linguistics lecturer Prof Matt Gardner said: ‘We don’t speak in the same way people did in the time of Shakespeare or Chaucer.

‘London, being the economic and cultural centre, drives these changes. We have seen that across the last hundred years, and we will see that across the next 100 years.’

It means use of the word ‘man’ as a pronoun instead of ‘I’, ‘you’ or ‘he’ could become prevalent in the UK.