Pam‘s not much of a gamer but she plays The Sims. Has for years. Started with the first one, now they’re up to The Sims3. Quite a piece of software that is!

If you’ve played (or watched it played) you know that it’s a chatty game. That is, those simulated entities never shut up. Some of the sounds are universal. Babies crying, sounds of disgust (“Ugh!”) and so on. But conversationally they seem to have a language all their own.

I was wondering about that. First, does what they say have any consistency? By that I mean, say, when one of ’em is hungry and mentions it, do they always say “oot grickle mem sitto zerk!” (or whatever that incomprehensible jabber is)? I don’t play, but I asked Pam and she said she thinks they might – but admitted she never paid attention.

By extension, if they do ‘speak’ with consistency then has anyone out there worked out the grammar? Is there anyone on the planet that can speak Sim?

Why not? There are people that can speak (and understand) Klingon. The ‘net delivers example after example of people that clearly have an abundance of free time. So why not?