With help from Data::Dumper and perltidy, here is how you would normally write that

my %people = (
    'friend' => {
        'SPEAK' => [ 'there she is' ],
        'DOB'   => '1984',
        'ROW'   => 1
    },
    'me' => {
        'SPEAK' => [ 'here i am', 'i am me' ],
        'DOB'   => 1985,
        'ROW'   => 0
    }
);
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