> [SEELANGS] sub-titles

Sarah Hurst sarahhurst at ALASKA.NET
Tue Apr 8 16:54:05 UTC 2008 

I think the film attempted to offend as many different racial and minority
groups as it could - and succeeded!

Sarah Hurst

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Vardanyan, Ashot
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 8:47 AM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] > [SEELANGS] sub-titles

Anyway, if it comes to my personal opinion, I was not very happy to hear my
mother tongue in such a mean film. I had a feeling my language was
associated with the humiliating plot of the content. Now, I think some Jews
could have the same view.
 
Ashot

________________________________

From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list on
behalf of Evgeny Steiner
Sent: Tue 08-Apr-08 10:02
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] > [SEELANGS] sub-titles



-----Original Message-----
From: Sarah Hurst <sarahhurst at ALASKA.NET>
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 13:24:36 -0800
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] > [SEELANGS] sub-titles

It's nonsense if one is talking Hebrew, the other is replying in Armenian,
and they are both pretending to be speaking Kazakh.

Oh, I thought it was a rather cunning joke to make that Anti-Semitic
simpleton to speak Hebrew. But possibly the authors of Borat had to be more
considerate to those film critics to whom either Armenian or Hebrew sound
like nonsense.

ES
-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Evgeny Steiner
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 11:45 AM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] > [SEELANGS] sub-titles

"Really a nonsense language"???
Sasha Baron-Cohen was talking good Hebrew.

Evgeny Steiner
Sainsbury Inst. for the Japanese Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Sarah Hurst <sarahhurst at ALASKA.NET>
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 10:52:48 -0800
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] > [SEELANGS] sub-titles

In Borat the two main characters are supposed to be speaking the same
language to each other (ostensibly Kazakh). As it's really a nonsense
language each actor just speaks in whatever foreign language he knows, with
Sasha Baron-Cohen throwing in quite a few Polish words, I think. So it
wouldn't really make sense to differentiate the subtitles and indicate that
one actor is speaking Armenian.

Sarah Hurst

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Ashot Vardanyan
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 10:31 AM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS] > [SEELANGS] sub-titles

Dear Michele,

My notes are somewhat different from what you want but might be of interest
as well.

I want to share my observation and impression on the language(s) and
subtitles of two films âEUR" Russian âEURoePrisoner of MountainâEUR
(âEURoeKavkazskii plennikâEUR) and American / British âEURoeBorat: cultural
learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of KazakhstanâEUR. In
both films the non-Armenian viewer naively reckons s/he hears the same
language from the characters as s/he reads the English subtitles.

The scene of the former is set in the Russian North Caucasus, supposedly in
Chechnya, the country that definitely has its own language. The filmmakers,
however, run a unique trick: the local men and women speak in the main three
languages of the entire Caucasus: Georgian, Azerbaijani, which is very
similar to Turkish, and Armenian. There might be other Caucasian languages
that I donâEUR(tm)t know; however, from the outset, it was unusual to hear
Georgian between Abdul-Murat and his daughter, but later the idea of the
producers became clear: they probably aimed at demonstrating the commonality
of all Caucasians which is, in turn, very dissonant to truth. The entire
Caucasus is a bundle of problems.

Armenian, my language, is represented by its âEURoehamshenaâEUR dialect
that is used by Armenians populating the Black Sea region. It appears only
in the episode of the childrenâEUR(tm)s talk, when a boy asks Dina if it is
already time for her to marry. It seems to me, this is also political. The
filmmakers couldnâEUR(tm)t help knowing that Armenia and Russia are allies
in all domains, whereas Georgia and Azerbaijan informally supported
ChechnyaâEUR(tm)s insurgency and had other conflicts in their relations with
Russia.

In âEURoeBoratâEUR¦âEUR, Azamat Bagatov, the partner of the main character,
speaks Armenian during all the span of the film. As a matter of fact, the
person who stars for him is an American Armenian actor Ken Davitian. He uses
the mixture of the Eastern and Western Armenian dialects. I donâEUR(tm)t
remember what language Borat speaks, to the best of my memory, itâEUR(tm)s
either / both Russian or / and Kazakh but itâEUR(tm)s definitely not
Armenian. However, viewers donâEUR(tm)t know this and follow the subtitles
being under the impression the characters sound the same language.

âEUR¦The quality of this film is a different topic.

Best,
Ashot Vardanyan,
University of Iowa.


04/06 17:25 "Michele A. Berdy" <maberdy at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> Seelangers, o ye who know and see all...
>
> Have any of you seen a multi-language film with sub-titles that
> distinguish between the languages spoken? If so, how did the
> sub-titles make the language distinction clear? Font? Italics?
> Other?
>
> Feel free to send comments off list (this is fairly obscure...)
> Thanks
>
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