# What language is this? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 7, 2007, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this/399142 "2007-04-07T23:48:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this/399142/1 "2007-04-07T23:48:51Z")
I found it in a game manual, of all things. Ut aliquat. Ut prat, vel et dolor ing ent wisi. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this/399142/2 "2007-04-07T23:53:15Z")
[Fake Latin](http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/052800-1.shtml). ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this/399142/3 "2007-04-07T23:54:45Z")
I may be wrong, but it seems like “greeking,” nonsense text that is used to indicate typographic style. It usually has the feel of faux-Latin. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this/399142/4 "2007-04-07T23:58:09Z")
Sounds like a more guttural dialect of the usual Lorem Ipsum, though. There’s no “aliquat” in classical cod-Latin, for example. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2007, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this/399142/5 "2007-04-08T00:09:24Z")
[QUOTE=panache45] I may be wrong, but it seems like “greeking,” nonsense text that is used to indicate typographic style. It usually has the feel of faux-Latin. [/QUOTE] I was going to suggest the same thing. Googling for subphrases of that turns up a lot of pages which seem to be various greeked mockups. The classic “lorem ipsum” isn’t so much fake Latin as badly mangled Latin. The common phraseology can be identified as a passage from something by Cicero, so badly chopped up as not to be readily intelligible: > **[Lorem ipsum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum)** > > This is an accepted version of this page > Lorem ipsum (/ˌlɔː.rəm ˈɪp.səm/ LOR-əm IP-səm) is a dummy or placeholder text commonly used in graphic design, publishing, and web development. It is typically a corrupted version of De finibus bonorum et malorum, a 1st-century BC text by the Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero, with words altered, added, and removed to make it nonsensical and improper Latin. The first two words are the truncation of dolorem ipsum ("pain itself"). Lorem ipsum's purpos... As that article observes: > [@](#): > > Many variations on the standard lorem ipsum text exist, some with little resemblance to the original. Other versions have additional letters — such as k, w, and z — that were uncommon or missing in the Latin, and nonsense words such as zzril, takimata, and gubergren added to the original passage to achieve a distribution of letters that more closely approximates English. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2007, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this/399142/6 "2007-04-08T00:26:45Z")
[QUOTE=panache45] I may be wrong, but it seems like “greeking,” nonsense text that is used to indicate typographic style. It usually has the feel of faux-Latin. [/QUOTE] So this is something like “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog”, .i.e an exercise to test things out, it it wasn’t erased before mass printing? ---
**Author:** ![Aioua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@Aioua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aioua)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2007, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this/399142/7 "2007-04-08T00:44:53Z")
[QUOTE=Love Rhombus] So this is something like “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog”, .i.e an exercise to test things out, it it wasn’t erased before mass printing? [/QUOTE] It’s used when you are designing a document, say, a newsletter. If the copy hasn’t been written yet, you need some random filler text to see what the final will look like. ---
**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 8, 2007, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this/399142/8 "2007-04-08T06:08:45Z")
It translates to “etaoin shrdlu”… ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2007, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this/399142/9 "2007-04-08T06:12:50Z")
[QUOTE=Love Rhombus] I found it in a game manual, of all things. Ut aliquat. Ut prat, vel et dolor ing ent wisi. [/QUOTE] Lorem ipsum text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet… Sorry. I typed those fake words for years and years at the magazine to estimate how many words I had for a given article. > [@](#): > > Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. > **[Lorem Ipsum - All the facts - Lipsum generator](https://www.lipsum.com/)** > > Reference site about Lorem Ipsum, giving information on its origins, as well as a random Lipsum generator. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2007, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-language-is-this/399142/10 "2007-04-08T14:41:13Z")
[The Master Speaks: What does the filler text “lorem ipsum” mean?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010216.html)