Fake Translations as Bilingual Humour

[Alexandre Enkerli]

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/