Ever wonder what gibberish in sign language sounds like? Leave it to Jimmy Kimmel to find out.
In reaction to the news that the sign language interpreter who was supposed to be translating speeches from President Barack Obama and other speakers at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in South Africa on Tuesday was a fraud, Kimmel enlisted in an actual interpreter to interpret the man’s signing.
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“Inside joining in this week’s cigarette inside to prove, and on and on,” Thamsanqa Jantjie told deaf attendees and viewers watching the event, via a professional interpreter named Justin who appeared on Kimmel’s ABC late-night program on Wednesday.
The Associated Press reported on Wednesday that the national director of the Deaf Federation of South Africa identified Jantje as a “fake,” while deaf South African parliament member Wilma Newhoudt confirmed the man was, indeed, saying absolutely nothing with his flailing arms.
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Kimmel, however, proved Jantjie was saying something — it just didn’t make any sense.
The AFP reports that Jantjie has since stepped forward to claim he was experiencing a schizophrenic episode on the job, while the South African government admitted on Thursday that he was “not a professional sign language interpreter.”
