Despicable Me director stole an Indian restaurant menu to create 'Minion lingo'

These cute yellow characters, who first aided the supervillain Gru in Despicable Me and then got a movie of their own, all speak in one voice — that of the Despicable Me series co-director Pierre Coffin.

Bello! Me want banana! Bank yu! Poopaye! Heard all this before? This is Minion talk.

Among all the words that make up the mishmash language of the Minions, there are some that are inspired by Indian foods.

While talking to the Media Despicable Me Director Coffin said;

“I love Indian food and [I] go, maybe three times a week, to an Indian restaurant. It’s this place where I literally stole their menu and took all the names of their dishes and actually placed them in every one of my movies. Like ‘Punjabi’ or ‘Chicken Korma’… I just put that in.”

“So people don’t really know that it’s in there just because it feels like a nonsensical word, but in a country like India, people would recognize these words. I [have even used] other words because I’m half-Indonesian and used Spanish words because 3/4th of the population understands Spanish.”

“I [then] asked my friend (the owner of the Indian restaurant), ‘Do you have any words that I can use’ and he suggested ‘Popadum’ and ‘Garlic bread’.”

“There are so many words that people don’t know. Sometimes I say nonsensical things, because I don’t [use words] out of the meaning but out of just the melody or the sound of a word. I’ve got this whole list of Italian, Spanish words.”