"Yaourt" from Lilly to Dory

So, I stumbled upon something pretty awesome today, and thought I would share.

Apparently, there's a term in French that is used to describe the substitution of French words to form nonsensical sentences in order to imitate the sound of English (in a comical or mocking tone).  It's called, "faire du yaourt" - "making yogurt."

Here's an example:


Et qui rit des curés d'Oc?
De Meuses raines, houp! de cloques.

Get it?  This post may give you a clue!

Anyway, the writer of the post in which I found this couldn't think of an equivalent English term.  Given that it's somewhat of an American tradition to imitate foreign languages for comedic purposes, it seems odd that we don't have a specific word or phrase that describes doing so.  Why do you think that is?

Love, Lilly

Edit: I've been thinking on this some more, and I've realized that this "yaourt" thing is actually very different than simple mockery.  If you look at the above example (which, hopefully you've noticed by now that it's meant to imitate the pronunciation of "Hickory Dickory Dock"), it obviously took a considerable amount of skill to construct.  I'm not sure of the actual French translation, but I'm thinking it's probably just a bunch of words arranged to sound like something else.  If that's the case, it can be compared to something like misheard lyrics:

Pro tip: DO NOT watch this video in a public place unless you are totally unembarrassed by uncontrollable fits of laughter.  

However, if the French translation actually has a coherent construction and meaning, I can see how it could be used as an even deeper level of satire; something totally worthy of an identifying term.

"Accent Circonflexe" from Dory to Lilly

French is weird, Lillah.

Recently, a certain phenomenon has come to my attention.  But first, let me give background info.  When writing French, accent marks are very important: they tell you how to pronounce the letter they're over, and/or they can change the meaning of a word. (For example, "a" means "has" as in "he has," and "à" means "to" as in "I went to the circus.")  There are several accent marks that come up in French.

The accent aigue: é
The accent grave: è
The accent cedille: ç
The accent trema: ï
And the accent circonflexe: ê, ô, î, â

The accent circonflexe is the wierd one, because it doesn't actually change anything about the word.  There's no point to it being there.  An i with an accent circonflexe is pronounced exactly the same as one without it. That has always bothered me.

Until my professer threw something out in class about it.  She has a habit of throwing out tasty linguistic tidbits.  The accent circonflexe shows where, historically, there was an s sound.  There are certain words in English that are cognates of French words with the circonflexe that still retain that s.  For example:

vestments, vest --- vêtements (clothes)

hostel  --- hôtel  (hotel)

coast--- côte (coast, side)

island, isle --- île (island)
forest --- forêt (forest)

ass --- âne (donkey)

That last one makes me chuckle.

Seriously, though. Consistently, French words with the accent circonflexe have a related English word that has an s there instead.

So, if these words are related, then the accent circonflexe-ing happened after English got its French influence. What I can't figure out is why. How did an s get turned into an accent that doesn't change the sound of the word at all?

In the words of Amélie's father when presented with pictures of his traveling garden gnome:  Je ne comprends pas!