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history of - Were the Smurfs the first to smurf their smurfs?


On Rick and Morty, Squanchy squanches some of his squanches with "squanch".


On South Park, we saw the Marklar marklar their marklar with "marklar".


Before those two shows, the Smurfs already smurfed some of their smurfs with "smurf".


But who was or were the first to replace some of their words with the same single word?




Clarification for those who speak neither Squanch nor Marklar nor Smurf: they all replace words or parts of words with a single word, respectively "squanch", "marklar", and "smurf". That word can be used as both a noun and a verb, even in the same sentence. It's a nonsensical word, its meaning solely to be derived from context.


The Smurfs were clearly a lot earlier than Rick and Morty and South Park. But were they the first to do this?


I'm interested in both earlier examples from fiction and real-life examples. I'm also curious to learn if Peyo took inspiration from an earlier example, if such exists.



Answer



It is hard to say for certain, as the search terms to apply for "smurfing" aren't very clear. However: Although there's likely to be many stories for children where a character replaces a word with some nonsensical term, it appears that The Smurfs themselves are indeed the first to do it on a large scale, and as part of a species' main language.


I started with Wikipedia's article on The Smurfs, which has a short section about their language. It mentions how it is used, but does not tell us about other examples of Smurf speech in fiction. TV Tropes, on the other hand, does have examples of others, and names them as the ones that gave the article its name. It does not mention if they were the first to "smurf", but considers it "probable".


The Smurfs were first introduced in 1958, drawn by the Belgian comic artist Pierre Culliford (pen name "Peyo"). They were "smurfing" since the beginning. Their stories were first published in the Spirou magazine.


The Spirou comics had earlier introduced the Marsupilami in 1952, a creature that only speaks with a very simple word - "houba". Even so, it can't be called "smurfing", because the noises it makes is not used as a replacement for otherwise normal English words - it simply cannot speak English.


I tried to check the other examples on the TV Tropes list to see if any comic book or animated examples were older than this, but found none. However, one example from literature is extremely old:




"Gargantua and Pantagruel" by Rabelais (mid-1500, possibly the oldest example) has this quabble for the bells of Notre-Dame: Magister Janotus de Bragmardo note : "Ego sic argumentor: Omnis glocka glockabilis in glockenturmio glockando, glockans glockativo glockare facit glockabiliter glockantes. Parisius habet glockas. Ergo gluck.


Note: German Canis Latinicus version. "Ergo gluck" is a scholastic formula, meaning about Q.E.D.



Here the word/sound "glock" is used repeatedly to describe bells. I am sadly not able to tell if this text uses it as actual "smurfing", or if it is merely playing with alliteration. Still, if using the effect in a single poem is enough to qualify, then this certainly beats The Smurfs by over 450 years.


If there are any earlier works that contain "smurfing" , I have not been able to find them.


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