Local man Pete is known to invent words. Family and friends feel helpless.

"Pete just makes words up," says his girl-friend Angela. "He doesn't mind other people not getting it. He says all the best people in the world do this. I'm not sure he's right."

We interviewed Pete but had to break the one-hour session after confusion and miscommunication. Here are some quotes of Pete:

"I do not believe shmarkus can solve the problems of our world. Only a sorwolla could. Then again, havip."

Or:

"Horkuva pah in the living room, or in the garden. You know?"

People early on are trained to use only standardized language, the so-called mother tongue. The great advantage over other random sounds is these words convey meaning; others don't. Does that make them inherently better?

Scientists do believe so. Professor Sam Clarke of Petersburg University argues: "If we would invent new words as we go along, the world would drop into total chaos. We'd have wars, people fighting about silly things, people lying, cheating, and what-not. Communication is the key to happiness."

And apparently, communication depends on two people (often strangers) using a well-defined set of vocal sounds.

"Even birds know how to articulate common thoughts in common language," continues Clarke. "Their ideas are not as grand as ours – a bird for example could never say 'pass the sugar please' – but they do well enough to survive. Survival as we know is the basis of evolution, which is the basis for life."

What about people living in the stone age? Surely they had to make up words all the time because they were the first users of language. Pete agreed to the notion: "See, and that's how I krol about it too. Whatever happened to being creative?"

Angela in the meantime created a dictionary to understand her boyfriend. She calls it the Petespeak Guide and assembled 240 words so far. "Sometimes, I think I sense meaning. Other times I find grammar, structure. Mostly I'm just puzzled. But when Pete smiles at me I know love needs no words."

By FakeToday correspondent Philipp Lenssen (9/3/2004).