Telephone
Word-of-mouth relay — whisper a sentence around a circle; laugh at the mangled version the last player announces.
What is Telephone?
Telephone (Chinese Whispers in Commonwealth English, Broken Telephone elsewhere) is a classic children's party game. Players sit in a circle; the first player whispers a sentence into the neighbour's ear, and each successive player whispers what they heard. The final player says the sentence aloud — usually hilariously mangled from the original. Also used as a serious teaching demo of how information distorts as it passes through many transmitters.
Quick facts
Category
Party Games
Type
Team sport
Players
4–20
Where played
both
Country of origin
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
Estimated origin
Traditional children's word-of-mouth relay game — folk origins
Olympic
No
Popularity
global