Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

The word buffalo may refer to an animal but has other meanings as well.

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." is a grammatically valid sentence used as an example of how homophones can be used to create complicated constructs. It was featured in Steven Pinker's 1994 book The Language Instinct, but is known to have been around before February 1992 when it was posted to Linguist List by William J. Rapaport.

Sentences of this type, although not in such a refined form, have been known for a long time. A classical example is a proverb "Don't trouble trouble until trouble troubles you".

Sentence construction

The sentence uses three different readings of the word "buffalo":

1. The plural form of "buffalo", that is, an American Bison, white buffalo, or African buffalo. The use of the plural enables the omission of articles.
2. Buffalo, New York, the second-largest city in the state of New York
3. A verb meaning to confuse, deceive, or intimidate

Marking each "buffalo" with its use as numbered above gives:

Buffalo² buffalo¹ Buffalo² buffalo¹ buffalo³ buffalo³ Buffalo² buffalo¹.

Thus, the sentence turns into a description of the pecking order in the social hierarchy of buffalo from the Buffalo zoo:

[Some] buffalo from Buffalo [that] buffalo from Buffalo intimidate [themselves] intimidate [other] buffalo [from] Buffalo.

Or, changing the grammatical structure slightly for easier understanding:

[Some] buffalo [from] Buffalo, [who are intimidated by other buffalo from Buffalo], [also themselves] intimidate [other different] buffalo from Buffalo.

Other than the obvious confusion caused by the homophones, the sentence is difficult to parse for several reasons:

1. The use of "buffalo" as a verb is not particularly common
2. The removal of syntactically significant words ("the", "that", etc.) to such a degree is not a common linguistic approach
3. The omission of punctuation makes it difficult to read the flow of the sentence
4. The example has the structure of a garden path sentence, i.e., the sentence that cannot be parsed by reading one word at a time without backtracking.
5. The length of the sentence reaches the limitations of human ability to parse structure and meaning

How to parse the sentence

Punctuated, the sentence looks like:

Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

By adding 'that', it would look like

Buffalo buffalo [that] Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

If the homophones were replaced with other words, it would look like

Buffalo bison [that] Buffalo bison intimidate intimidate Buffalo bison.

Using common articles and punctuation:

The Buffalo bison that Buffalo bison intimidate, intimidate Buffalo bison.

Using synonyms:

New York bison, [that] New York bison annoy, [also] bother New York bison.

(This example also retains its clarity after the additives are removed, providing further aid in understanding the concept.)

It may help to consider the following sentence, which has the same grammatical structure:

Many things many people say confuse many people.

One can invent a close 'relative' of the sentence to reveal the structure.(Cowes is on the Isle of Wight)

Cowes cows Cowes cows cow cow Cowes cows.

(The) Cowes cows (that) Cowes cows cow (frighten), (themselves) cow (frighten) Cowes cows

Similar examples in English

• Bore boar Bore boar bore bore bore Bore boar bore. There are boar that live in the Severn Tidal bore. They are Bore-boar. People who are too interested in them are Bore-boar bores. But the Bore-boar (pl) that bore (carried) Bore-boar bore (make yawn) Bore-boar bore i.e. Bore-boar Bore-boar bore bore bore Bore-boar bore.
• Bore bore bore bore bore bore bore bore bore bore bore. The bore-bore (someone boring about tidal bores) once borne by bore-bore (piggy-back style) bore (carried) bore-bore bore-bore bore (the bore-bore a bore-bore bore).
• Who polices the police? - The police police. So, who polices the police police? Police police police police police police. (see Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)
• Badgers badgers badger badger badgers badgers badger. (Badgers annoyed by badgers annoy badgers annoyed by badgers.) Also hearkens back to the Internet meme, Badger, badger, badger.
• A joke, in which a conductor, when asked how long will the train stay at the station, answered "From two to two to two two".
• That that, that that that was referring to was that that.
• "John, where Bill had had 'had', had had 'had had'. 'Had had' had had the teacher's approval."
• "I wonder whether the wether will weather the weather, or whether the wether the weather will kill" is a similar animal-related expression used to teach about homophones and syntax.
• Another example is "which witch watched which watch."
• Also, "That that is is that that that that is not is not."
• Yet another example is "The last boss she had had had had enough of her."
• Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips? (This is also an example of the use-mention distinction.)
• Fuck, famously has multiple uses as well: "Fuck! I hope those fucking fuckers get fucked for the fuck that they fucking fucked."

Similar examples in other languages

• An example of a French sentence fragment with similar properties is "vers le ver de verre vert," which translates as "toward the green glass worm."
• In Serbian and Croatian, the sentence "gore gore gore gore" means "up there forests are burning worse" (however, the words have different accents).
• In a Korean dialect, "gaga gaga ga ga?" means "Is that person (first gaga) Ga family's (second gaga) member (first ga) ? (last ga indicates it is a question).
• In Urdu one can say "Samajh samajh k samajh ko samjho, samajh samajh k samajh ko samajhna bhi aik samajh hay. Jo samajh samajh k samajh ko na samjhay wo meri samajh may na samajh hay " meaning: "understand the art of understanding by good understanding. because understanding the art of understanding by good understanding is a good understanding. the one who can't understand the art of understanding by good understanding is in my understanding not able to understand"
• In Malay lovers can say "Sayang, sayang, sayang sayang sayang. Sayang sayang sayang?", which translates to "Darling, I love you. Do you love me?". This is a true homophone as the same word is used for pronoun and verb. The person being asked can even reply "Sayang," or "Sayang sayang sayang," in return.
• In Turkish one can say "Müdür, müdür müdür?" meaning: "Is the principle, the principle?" The first two "Müdür"s mean "The principle" whereas the third "müdür" stands for "Is the?".
• In Japanese, niwaniwaniwaniwatorigairu is a well-known sentence that has, due to the high number of homophones, as many as ninety-two possible interpretations.
• In Mandarin Chinese, "Ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma" means "Does Mother scold horses or do horses scold Mother?" However, Mandarin is a tonal language, so the words above are not true homophones. This sentence is used as an exercise to show the contrastive nature of Chinese tones and practice their correct realizations.
• In Norwegian, the sentence "Avstanden mellom Ole og og og og og Kari har økt", meaning roughly "The distance between Ole and 'and' and 'and' and Kari has been increased.", could be uttered to explain that three words on a sign ("Kari og Ole") has been moved further away from each other.
• In German, "Wenn hinter Fliegen Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach" means "If flies fly after flies, flies fly behind flies."
• In Finnish, "Kokoa kokko kokoon. Koko kokkoko? Koko kokko." means "Build a bonfire. Whole bonfire? Whole bonfire", or "Piilevät piilevät piileviä piileviä piilevissä piilevissä".
• In Spanish - "¿Cómo cómo como? ¡Como como como!" means "What do you mean 'how do I eat'? I eat how I eat!", provided the correct emphasis on each como.
• A short story by Robert Sheckley Shall We Have a Little Talk? (a 1965 Nebula Award for Best Novelette) describes a planet where language mutates so fast that an Earthman colonizer cannot catch up with it: the yesterday's version he learned overnight hypnopaedically, tomorrow is no longer in use. The Earthman accepted his defeat when he was addressed thusly: Mun mun-mun-mun. Mun mun mun; mun mun mun; mun mun. Mun, mun mun mun--mun mun mun. Mun-mun? Mun mun mun mun!.
• In Russian, a well-known brainteaser is the task to fragment the following sequence into words to make a meaningful text: "kolokolokolokola" (Answer: "kol okolo kolokola", meaning "the stake (is) by the bell")
• In Swedish, "Får får får? Får får Lamm!" which translates to "Sheeps gives birth to sheep? [no] Sheep gives birth to Lamb!"
• In Thai, "Mai mai mai mai, mai." While, due to the tonal nature of the Thai language, each "mai" is pronounced differently, this is a complete sentence. The translation is something like, "New wood doesn't burn, does it?"
• In Hebrew, "Isha na'ala na'ala na'ala na'ala et hadelet bifnei ba'ala" means "A respectful woman put on her shoe, locked the door in front of her husband".
• In Latin, "Malo malo malo malo" means "I'd rather be in an apple tree than a bad man in adversity."
• In Filipino the interrogative sentence "Bababa ba?", which is translated to English as "(is someone) Going down?", is used when a driver asks his passengers if they intend to go out of the vehicle. An extension is the following exchange in an elevator: "Baba, bababa ba?" "Bababa." "Ba, bababa!" which means: "Baba (proper name), (is this elevator) going down?" "(Yes, it is) going down." "Oh! (amazed) So it's going down!")
• The Danish question "Får får får?", can be considered to use many homophones. When translated into English means 'Do sheep get sheep?'. As a confusing childhood tongue-twister, although not using strictly homophones, this can be expanded upon with the replies of "Nej, får får lam" and "Hvorfor får får ikke får?"
• In Tamil, in the 12th couplet of the Thirukkural, it says, "Thuuppaarkkuth thuppaaya thuppaakith thuppaarkkuth thuppaaya thoou mazhai". Roughly translated into English as "The rain begets the food we eat; And forms a food and drink concrete". Many such couplets (with homophones) are found in this literary work.

See also

• Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den

External links

• "Buffaloing buffalo" at Language Log, 20 January 2005
• Easdown, David. "Teaching mathematics: the gulf between semantics (meaning) and syntax (form)" Template:Pdf.