How Do You Speak Simlish?
The Sims, developed by Maxis and distributed by Electronic Arts, is one of the most popular video games available. Beginning with Sim Copter, a fictional language was developed and incorporated into the game. Used extensively in Sims 1, 2, 3, and related add-on packs, simlish now comes in a variety of flavors and has inspired many to imitate and use the fictional language. Recently, simlish versions of songs by popular recording artists have been developed. • Understand the origins of the language. Will Wright, the creator of the Sims, and the rest of the Maxis development team, knew they wanted dialog in the game but thought a real language would be too distracting. Originally, they looked at Navajo code breakers from World War II, but eventually developed a “gibberish” language with a combination of Latin, Ukrainian, Navajo, and Tagalog (national language of the Philippines). • Understand that simlish was developed further by linguists and speech actors for use in the Sims. By studyi
