In an essay entitled "L'art du grommelot", French scholar
Claude Duneton suggests the word (not the technique) – in its French form,
grommelot – has its origins in the ''
commedia dell'arte-derived Italian theatre of the early part of the sixteenth century. Duneton studied briefly with Léon Chancerel (1886–1965), who was a major figure in this branch of theatre. Chancerel in fact uses the word in his book, Le théâtre et la jeunesse
(Paris: Bourrellier 1946:47). Others, such as theatre scholar John Rudlin in Commedia dell'arte: An Actor's Handbook'' (London: Routledge 1994:60), suggest this origin as well. While the historical origin of the term is unclear, it has been particularly popularized by the
Nobel-winning Italian
playwright Dario Fo. His 1969 show
Mistero Buffo ("
Comic Mystery Play") was a satirical touring performance involving sketches based on mediaeval sources, told in Fo's own grammelots constructed from
Gallo-Italian languages and
phonemes from modern languages (he has coined separate Italian, French and American grammelots). In his Nobel lecture, Fo referred to the 16th-century Italian playwright
Ruzzante's invention of a similar language based on Italian dialects, Latin, Spanish, German and onomatopoeic sounds. Another notable modern Italian exponent is the
Milan actor/writer
Gianni Ferrario.
Voice actor Carlo Bonomi, also from Milan, used grammelot to voice
Osvaldo Cavandoli's cartoon
La Linea and many years later, outside Italy,
Otmar Gutmann's
Pingu. Mainstream
comics have also used Grammelot-like language: for instance,
Stanley Unwin. The Canadian
circus and entertainment troupe
Cirque du Soleil uses in its routines similar forms of language; journalists often term them "Cirquish", but Cirque du Soleil's own staff use the word "Grommelot". Famous Grammelot also include
Charlie Chaplin's faux-German in
The Great Dictator and
Monty Python's
Knights Who Say Ni. A modern form of Grammelot can be heard in the
Despicable Me franchise, where the
Minions speak a fictitious language; the language is made up of words borrowed from several languages, which make no cohesive sense, relying instead on tone and expression to convey the meaning. ==See also==