There was a sort of dictionary in the late 1500s, the Worlde of Wordes, that included this definition: “Balchi, a..roguish, gibbrish word, vsed for money.” Whatever kind of money “balchi” was has been lost to history, as has the word “balchi”, but the entry did, at least, include one of the first appearances of “gibbrish”. Clearly the author used up his allotment of the letter “e” in the book title, because today we spell it “gibberish.”
“Gibberish” still means pretty much what it always has; speech that nobody can understand, either because it’s in some unknown language (“we speak no English, but gibbrish”) or because it’s nonsense (“His little infant neere, in childish gibbridge…”).
Nobody knows where “gibberish” came from, but it sounds like it’s related to other words about talking, like “jabber,” “gibber,” and “gab.” Well, it might not sound much like “gab” nowadays, but back in the day “gibberish” was more often pronounced with the same hard “g” sound used in “gab.” Supposedly some people still pronounce it that way — it was probably a precursor of the controversy about how to pronounce gif (the graphic interchange format for image files) — some people think it should sound just like their favorite brand of peanut butter, others don’t. Or maybe they just don’t like Jif peanut butter.
Although nobody really knows where “gibberish” really came from, there is a pretty good story about it, from Samuel Johnson in 1755. He supposed “it is probably derived from the chymical cant, and originally implied the jargon of Geber and his tribe.” “Geber” is the European-ized name of the 8th century alchemist Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan. He was extremely prolific, and his books were — and are — quite difficult to understand. This may have been on purpose; an approach other alchemists used to keep their methods and discoveries (alchemists actually did make some real discoveries as they kept trying to turn stuff into gold). And “Geber” even admitted to it, in his book The Book of Stones According to the Opinion of Balinas. There’s a passage in there that explains it all: “And, as always, we deliberately abrogate in one book what we say in another. The reason is to baffle and lead into error everyone except those whom God loves and provides for.”
There isn’t any evidence at all for Johnson’s idea about the origin of “gibberish,” and he was known to…shall we say…make stuff up and put it in his dictionary. Another way to put it is that Samuel Johnson’s dictionary is a famous, historic reference work…but it’s full of gibberish.
