Glokaya kuzdra is a reference to a meaningless but grammatically correct Russian language

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 phrase, similar to the English language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 phrase "Gostak

Gostak

Gostak is a meaningless noun that is used in the phrase "the gostak distims the doshes", an example of how it is possible to derive meaning from the syntax of a sentence even if the referents of the terms are entirely unknown. This can be seen in the following dialogue:In Amazing Stories, Dr...

". It was suggested by Russian linguist Lev Shcherba

Lev Shcherba

Lev Shcherba was a Russian linguist and lexicographer specializing in phonetics and phonology....

. The full phrase is: "Гло́кая ку́здра ште́ко будлану́ла бо́кра и кудря́чит бокрёнка" (Glokaya kuzdra shteko budlanula bokra i kudryachit bokryonka). In the phrase, all word stem

Word stem

In linguistics, a stem is a part of a word. The term is used with slightly different meanings.In one usage, a stem is a form to which affixes can be attached. Thus, in this usage, the English word friendships contains the stem friend, to which the derivational suffix -ship is attached to form a new...

s (glok-, kuzdr-, shtek-, budl-, bokr-, kudr-) are meaningless, but all affix

Affix

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...

es are real and used in a grammatically correct way.

Shcherba used it in his lectures in linguistics to emphasise the importance of grammar in acquiring foreign languages. The phrase was popularized by Lev Uspensky

Lev Uspensky

Lev Vasilyevich Uspensky was a Russian writer and philologist, known for his popular science books in linguistics.-Prose:*«Запах лимона» *«Пулковский меридиан» *«60-я параллель»...

 in his popular science

Popular science

Popular science, sometimes called literature of science, is interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is broad-ranging, often written by scientists as well as journalists, and is presented in many...

 book A Word about Words.