Fake Translations as Bilingual Humour

[Kerim Friedman]

Fake translations are something of an Internet meme here in Taiwan. You can
find hundreds of YouTube videos with fake subtitles for non-Chinese songs.
There is usually some effort to match the sound of the song. This is similar
to the endless "Hitler is upset about X" videos with fake subtitles for the
bunker scene in Downfall. In a related vein, there is a video one can find
of an Italian singer singing in "fake English" which sounds something like
what English sounds like to an Italian. See samples below.

Cheers,

Kerim

Sample 1:

There is a popular youtube clip of a Tamil film version of Michael Jackson's
thriller. Here some students re-enact the Tamil film, with their own
subtitles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1tVc7oXvYA

Sample 2:

You can understand this better by seeing an example of this kind of fake
subtitling of Indian songs in English:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLpROhIg9eA

Sample 3:

Hitler finds out about another Downfall parody:

http://FunnyOrDie.co.uk/m/2xir

Sample 4:

What English sounds like to Italians: Prisencolinensinainciusol, written by
Adriano Celentano, 1972

http://boingboing.net/2009/12/17/gibberish-rock-song.html


On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Alexandre Enkerli <enkerli at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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/
>