# The Gibberish(?) That Ursula Sings in "Poor Unfortunate Souls" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 15, 2014, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gibberish-that-ursula-sings-in-poor-unfortunate-souls/686130 "2014-04-15T01:54:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gibberish-that-ursula-sings-in-poor-unfortunate-souls/686130/1 "2014-04-15T01:54:48Z")
[![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9AaLdP8Kd_8/hqdefault.jpg "Disney music - Poor unfortunate souls - Little mermaid") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AaLdP8Kd_8) Beginning at 5:37 Ursula begins some incantation to steal Ariel’s voice. Best I can figure it’s a mix of English, Latin-sounding gibberish, and just gibberish. One lyrics site says: _Beluga sevruga Come winds of the Caspian Sea Larengix glaucitis Et max laryngitis La voce to me_ …which is probably as close to the “official” lyrics as we’re going to get. Does any of this mean anything? ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gibberish-that-ursula-sings-in-poor-unfortunate-souls/686130/2 "2014-04-15T01:59:31Z")
Beluga and sevruga are two types of caviar, both native to the Caspian Sea. “Max laryngitis” is dog-Latin for “worst possible voice-box affliction” and “la voce” is “the voice”. So she’s putting a spell on Ariel for her to lose her voice and Ursula to receive it. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gibberish-that-ursula-sings-in-poor-unfortunate-souls/686130/3 "2014-04-15T06:26:32Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > Beginning at 5:37 Ursula begins some incantation to steal Ariel's voice. Best I can figure it's a mix of English, Latin-sounding gibberish, and just gibberish. One lyrics site says: > > _Beluga sevruga > Come winds of the Caspian Sea > Larengix glaucitis > Et max laryngitis > La voce to me_ > > …which is probably as close to the “official” lyrics as we’re going to get. > > Does any of this mean anything? In the official songbook from the movie, the third and fourth lines are a bit different from what you have: Larynxes, glacydis ad max laryngitis la voce to me “Glacydis” doesn’t seem to be a real word, but as pronounced in the film it rhymes with “glossitis” (which means swollen or inflamed tongue). I doubt that the lines mean anything specific; it’s just a mishmash designed to sound like a magical incantation for stealing someone’s voice. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gibberish-that-ursula-sings-in-poor-unfortunate-souls/686130/4 "2014-04-15T08:27:50Z")
> [@steveroo](#): > > I doubt that the lines mean anything specific; it’s just a mishmash designed to sound like a magical incantation for stealing someone’s voice. Of course. If Disney used the actual magical incantation that steals a voice, the consequences would be disastrous. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gibberish-that-ursula-sings-in-poor-unfortunate-souls/686130/5 "2014-04-15T19:19:49Z")
“la voce to me” sounds specific. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gibberish-that-ursula-sings-in-poor-unfortunate-souls/686130/6 "2014-04-15T19:37:08Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > If Disney used the actual magical incantation that steals a voice, the consequences would be disastrous. This. It would have nipped the Second Golden Age of Disney cartoon musicals in the bud, for one thing. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gibberish-that-ursula-sings-in-poor-unfortunate-souls/686130/7 "2014-04-16T22:19:48Z")
> [@Yookeroo](#): > > “la voce to me” sounds specific. Okay, my bad for saying “specific.” “Coherent” might have been a better word choice. What do you think the rest of it means? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gibberish-that-ursula-sings-in-poor-unfortunate-souls/686130/8 "2014-04-17T03:40:39Z")
> [@steveroo](#): > > Okay, my bad for saying “specific.” “Coherent” might have been a better word choice. > > What do you think the rest of it means? Larynxes are, obviously, larynxes. Voiceboxes. If that actually is “glossitis”, it describes a condition that makes speech difficult if not impossible. “Ad max laryngitis”, as someone said upthread, means “to the greatest possible laryngitis”. It’s basically a bunch of Latin and pseudo-Latin (Latin had no articles, so they stole the “la” in “la voce to me” from French or Spanish or Italian) about the speech-making process. ETA: Actually, there’s Greek in there, too…“gloss” is Greek for “tongue” and “larynx” is Greek, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Drewzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/58f4c7/32.png) [@Drewzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drewzilla)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2024, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gibberish-that-ursula-sings-in-poor-unfortunate-souls/686130/9 "2024-08-18T15:55:38Z")
I’m so glad you came back and tried to rephrase your original statement. When I first read it I thought to myself “no shit it sounds specific? It is!”, so I just assumed the writer of the comment wasn’t very intelligent. Sorry about making that assumption!! After your rephrasing, I get what you meant in the original statement, and agree. Earlier in the comments 1 or 2 people implied that because it’s a magic spell, and was being spoken on a a cartoon children’s movie, that it was most likely just fake words. Which is completely incorrect, and cracks me up, because people are so quick to speak authoritatively about something, and don’t even bother to do a quick google search to try and e