Fake Translations as Bilingual Humour

[galey modan]

Just a quick note about the Wayne's world Cantonese-with-English-subtitles
theme. I always interpreted it, not as a reference to Cantonese being a
'compact' language, but rather as a play on old Chinese films with English
subtitles where people speak for minutes with only a few subtitles, giving
the idea that only a small portion of what's being said is actually being
translated.

Galey Modan

2010/7/10 Alexandre Enkerli <enkerli at gmail.com>

> Does anyone know of interesting examples of language-related humour in
> the form of fake translations?
> Seems like we visited a similar topic at some point in the past. These
> queries often lead to interesting results, including for learning and
> teaching.
>
> Was just having fun with some fake translations, over Twitter. Did it
> for the fun of it, using pseudo-random phrases to translate "status
> quo ante bellum," the result of the Anglo-American War of 1812-15. It
> then got me thinking about how revealing these fake translations can
> be. In a way, it's impossible to make them both funny and culturally
> neutral. There could be a Jakobson angle to all this.
>
> In some contexts, fake translations constitute a form of
> exoteric-esoteric humour (as Bill Hansen called it). Exoteric-esoteric
> verbal art seems especially useful when looking at the negotiation of
> linguistic identity in contact situations. In other cases, it just
> reveals stereotypes about a language. As an example of such
> stereotypes, there's an example about Cantonese in Wayne's World
> (1992). In that movie, the subtitles for a few syllables of alleged
> Cantonese are rendered as several sentences in English, going with the
> idea that very complex thoughts can be expressed in Cantonese with
> just a few monosyllabic words.
> You can watch that fake translation unfolding at about 1:30 in the
> following clip:
> http://movieclips.com/watch/waynes-world-1992/wayne-speaks-cantonese/
> (I think I actually mentioned this one in the past. Not that I'm a fan
> of that movie but this joke did remain on my mind.)
>
> In Quebec, there was a series of jokes (some bordering on ethnic
> slurs) which were based on fake translations which were in fact
> humorous renditions of Québécois dialect. For instance,
> "mother-in-law" in Algonquin was allegedly pronounced as «elakawatch»
> which is Québécois for "she's there, watching." Part of the fun, in
> those, is that Québécois itself is treated as an "obscure language,"
> by its native speakers. Given relationships Québécois have been having
> with other Francophones, it's possibly not that trivial a form of
> self-deprecating humour.
>
> Of course, similar forms of humour can become political issues. Here's
> a (politically "conservative") reaction to a case involving
> (politically "liberal") Rosie O'Donnell faking an unnamed East Asian
> language with a series of utterances sounding like "ching chong":
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qINiw6ub5U
>
> Bilingual humour is much broader than just fake translations. For
> instance, it includes some apparently benign wordplay which is only
> understood by bilinguals. An Acadian example: "Where do lobsters buy
> their clothes? Homard-ware." («Homard» is French for "lobster" and
> "homard-ware" sounds like "Home Hardware," the name of a chain of
> hardware stores.) Not that revealing of important cultural issues, in
> my mind. But it could go with issues surrounding bilingualism in
> Acadian communities.
>
> Seems to me, a collection of fake translations would be quite
> interesting. We've often discussed lists of relevant movie and pop
> cultural references, around here. In this case, it could make for
> useful material on our site...
>
> Does anyone have some to share?
>
> --
> Alex
>
>
>
> Alexandre Enkerli
> Department of Sociology and Anthropology
> Concordia University
> http://enkerli.com/
>