# Can anyone translate this gibberish?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-translate-this-gibberish/64877>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [May 9, 2001, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-translate-this-gibberish/64877 "2001-05-09T14:48:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2001, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-translate-this-gibberish/64877/1 "2001-05-09T14:48:51Z")

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I received this email message. I don’t know for a fact that it is legit, or even a real language. It could just be someone banging on a keyboard:

haloo gimana arek arek [mailing list] ?  
aku mau nanya nih, katanya [mailing list] tanggal 5 mei  
kemarin ngadain festival untuk ultah nya [mailing list] di  
jogja kok kemarin nggak ada dan khabarnya aku denger  
besok tanggal 19 mei di jogja itu betul nggak?

NB ; salam buat [mailing list] ya+  
buat mas Tulus sampai ketemu lagi di kinsernya  
[mailing list] ya

(I’ve edited out the name of the mailing list that I was a part of. If you’re interested, though, I ended up on it after I bid on a Stacy Q album on Ebay.)

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**Author:** ![YoungGotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/c2a13f/32.png) [@YoungGotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoungGotti)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2001, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-translate-this-gibberish/64877/2 "2001-05-09T14:52:30Z")

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My only question is:

What were you doing bidding on a Stacey Q album?

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**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2001, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-translate-this-gibberish/64877/3 "2001-05-09T15:00:58Z")

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I think the gibberish IS the Stacey Q album. 😉

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**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2001, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-translate-this-gibberish/64877/4 "2001-05-09T15:15:12Z")

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plugging in some of the words into a search engine, it seems to indicate that your passage is in some Indonesian language. The national language is Bahasa Indonesia, but it’ll take a better linguist, perhaps matt\_mcl or Jomo Mojo to tell which and to, perhaps, translate.

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**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2001, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-translate-this-gibberish/64877/5 "2001-05-09T15:17:56Z")

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It’s something Indonesian-- malaysian, somewhere in that family. Can’t tell you any more than that. Is there babelfish for that kind of thing?

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**Author:** ![Reuben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/54ee81/32.png) [@Reuben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reuben)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2001, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-translate-this-gibberish/64877/6 "2001-05-09T15:32:40Z")

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Indonesian alright, though finding an online translator is hard word. I did part of one sentance here : [http://www.iit.edu/~syafsya/searchword.cgi](http://www.iit.edu/~syafsya/searchword.cgi)

and got this snippet :

aku = I  
mau = want/will  
nanya = ask  
nih = now  
katanya = people say

Although not all words are found.

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**Author:** ![Morrison\_s\_Lament](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Morrison\_s\_Lament](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morrison_s_Lament)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2001, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-translate-this-gibberish/64877/7 "2001-05-09T17:11:56Z")

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You won’t believe this, but the one person I know who actually speaks some Indonesian dialects is out of the country for ten days ☹

— G. Raven