Bilingual pun
Encyclopedia
A bilingual pun is a pun
in which a word in one language is similar to a word in another language; this is often done by mixing languages, and is a form of macaronic language
. Typically, use of bilingual puns results in in-joke
s, since there is often a small overlap between speakers of the two languages.
A general technique in bilingual punning is homophonic translation
, which consists of translating a passage in a source language into a homophonic (but likely nonsensical) passage in a target language. This requires the listener or reader to understand both the surface, nonsensical translated text, as well as the source text – the surface text then sounds like source text spoken in a foreign accent. An example, Luis van Rooten's
English-French Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames (1967), translates "Humpty Dumpty
" beginning:
The original reads:
while the translation literally means:
:
English speakers may respond jokingly to the French expressions "C'est moi", "C'est la vie" and "C'est la guerre" ("It's me", "That's life" and "It's war", respectively) with "Moi", "La vie" or "La guerre." (The last example was used in the 1952 film Road to Bali
.) C'est, French for "it is", resembles the English word say, hence allowing for a phrase to be interpreted as a request to speak the words after "c'est".
routine depicts a young Mozart
appearing before an Emperor
who offers him items from a plate of food and asks how many he would like:
It's nice to be a Preiss but it's higher to be a Bayer.
This is a bilingual pun because Preiss is Bavarian slang for prussian and Bayer means Bavarian. In English, there is the price/buyer pun so you really have to understand both languages to get this.
," science fiction author Cordwainer Smith
wrote,
One of the Chinese readings of An-fang is "Peace Square" and Anfang is the German word for "beginning."
series His and Her Circumstances contains the following pun;
"You may" sounds like yume, the Japanese word for "dream".
The song Hey Ya!
by Outkast
sounds like the word heya which means "room."
The pun can be taken further by adding "watashi no" in front of "hey ya" to make it sound like "my room" in Japanese.
The letter "e" when called by its name sounds like the Japanese ii which means "good." So anything beginning with a long "e" sound can be called "good x." For example e-mail - ii-mail - good mail.
Neither one speaks the language of the other — but each thinks he is being understood. Kome, pronounced KO-MAY, is Japanese for "rice," while Come, with the same pronunciation, is Portuguese for "Eat" (imperative). This humorous contretemps roughly translates as: "But I want rice"; "That's right, go ahead, eat this"; "No, I want rice"; "Yes, yes eat it".
's 1843 conquest of Sindh
in India, the satirical magazine Punch
published a cartoon in which the despatch to his commanders was "Peccavi", meaning, in Latin "I have sinned" (I have Sindh). (The joke was the pun; but the cartoon was about the sin: the slaughter of some 26,000 Indians for no particular purpose, and even against direct orders not to take Sindh.)
After the capture of Lucknow
in 1857 Lord Clyde
(or one of his officers) is supposed to have telegraphed home, "Nunc fortunatus sum" I am in luck now.
In both of these examples, the double meaning is generated by comparison of the English translation to the Indian place name (the Latin word or phrase is not actually part of the pun).
(From the film Sione's Wedding
. "E tu" is Māori for "Stand up".)
A Norwegian
tourist visited London
and wanted to take a taxi
. He opened the door to what he thought was the passenger side, and was surprised to find the driver sitting there. He said: "I'm sorry, but in my country the rat is on the other side.". The Norwegian word for "steering wheel
" is ratt.
Another Norwegian tourist took a taxi. When he reached his destination, he realized that he didn't have any money. He said to the taxi driver: "I'm sorry, I cannot pay because I'm black." (In Norwegian, blakk means "broke"). The taxi driver turned and the Norwegian realized that the taxi driver was, in fact, black. He apologized and said: "I'm so sorry, but in my country we call all poor people black.".
As they were returning to Europe on a train with all the animals the jaguar (Spanish: jaguar) died and the contractor was distressed about the complication and cost of having to go back with all the animals just to catch one jaguar. Someone in his staff suggested they could take a fox (Spanish: zorro), of which they had one extra, and paint it to look like a jaguar thereby saving the need to go back. So this they did and continued on to Europe where they delivered all the animals to the zoo, including the "jaguar".
The zoo promptly put the newly arrived "jaguar" in the same enclosure with other jaguars but they would not mix. The new one cowered in a corner while the old ones looked at it distrustingly. This went on for some time until finally one of the resident jaguars slowly walked up to the new arrival and asked "Jaguar you?" (Pun: How are you?), to which the new arrival responded "I am zorry" (Pun: I am a fox).
The pun is that "c'est la vie," French for "that's life" (a common saying to brush off minor misfortunes), sounds exactly like like "se la vi" in Spanish, which roughly translates to "I saw it."
The second phrase is a question with an exclamation, meaning: "Where, damn it?" The last one sounds like an annoyed reply in Russian: "Туда, блин!" (Tuda, blin!), which means "There, damn it!".
) says "Tamil teri ma?", to which a Punjabi
man answers, "Punjabi tera baap, oye!"
The first is a question, which in Tamil means "Do you understand Tamil?" but in Punjabi sounds like "Tamil is your mother" (a sort of slur or slight on the person or his ethnicity, similar to "yo momma!"). To this, the Punjabi man, offended, responds explosively with "Punjabi (the language) is your daddy!" (offensive; you and your language are inferior to Punjabi).
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
in which a word in one language is similar to a word in another language; this is often done by mixing languages, and is a form of macaronic language
Macaronic language
Macaronic refers to text spoken or written using a mixture of languages, sometimes including bilingual puns, particularly when the languages are used in the same context . The term is also sometimes used to denote hybrid words, which are in effect internally macaronic...
. Typically, use of bilingual puns results in in-joke
In-joke
An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or in joke, is a joke whose humour is clear only to people who are in a particular social group, occupation, or other community of common understanding...
s, since there is often a small overlap between speakers of the two languages.
A general technique in bilingual punning is homophonic translation
Homophonic translation
Homophonic translation renders a text in one language into a near-homophonic text in another language, usually with no attempt to preserve the original meaning of the text. In one homophonic translation, for example, English "sat on a wall" is rendered as French "s'étonne aux Halles" 'is...
, which consists of translating a passage in a source language into a homophonic (but likely nonsensical) passage in a target language. This requires the listener or reader to understand both the surface, nonsensical translated text, as well as the source text – the surface text then sounds like source text spoken in a foreign accent. An example, Luis van Rooten's
Luis van Rooten
Luis van Rooten, was an American film actor. He was christened Luis d'Antin van Rooten.Van Rooten earned his BA at the University of Pennsylvania and worked as an architect before deciding to pursue film work in Hollywood during World War II...
English-French Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames (1967), translates "Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty is a character in an English language nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle and one of the best known in the English-speaking world. He is typically portrayed as an egg and has appeared or been referred to in a large number of works of literature and popular culture...
" beginning:
- Un petit d'un petit / S'étonne aux Halles
The original reads:
- Humpty Dumpty / Sat on a wall.
while the translation literally means:
- One little [one] from [another] little [one] / was astonished at Les HallesLes HallesLes Halles is an area of Paris, France, located in the 1er arrondissement, just south of the fashionable rue Montorgueil. It is named for the large central wholesale marketplace, which was demolished in 1971, to be replaced with an underground modern shopping precinct, the Forum des Halles...
.
French
From the motion picture Clue: the MovieClue (film)
Clue is a 1985 comedy mystery film based on the board game of the same name . The film is a murder mystery set in a Gothic Revival mansion, and is styled after Murder by Death and other various murder/dinner parties of mystery...
:
- Mrs. Peacock: Is there a "little girl's room" in the hall?
- Yvette: Oui, oui, madame.
- Mrs. Peacock: No, I just need to powder my nose.
English speakers may respond jokingly to the French expressions "C'est moi", "C'est la vie" and "C'est la guerre" ("It's me", "That's life" and "It's war", respectively) with "Moi", "La vie" or "La guerre." (The last example was used in the 1952 film Road to Bali
Road to Bali
Road to Bali is a 1952 comedy film starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. It was released by Paramount Pictures and is the sixth of the seven Road to … movies...
.) C'est, French for "it is", resembles the English word say, hence allowing for a phrase to be interpreted as a request to speak the words after "c'est".
German
A Wayne and ShusterWayne and Shuster
Wayne and Shuster were a Canadian comedy duo formed by Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster. They were active professionally from the early 1940s until the late 1980s....
routine depicts a young Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
appearing before an Emperor
Emperor
An emperor is a monarch, usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife or a woman who rules in her own right...
who offers him items from a plate of food and asks how many he would like:
- Nein, sir.
- Very well then, give him nine… musicians are like actors - they eat like pigs!
It's nice to be a Preiss but it's higher to be a Bayer.
This is a bilingual pun because Preiss is Bavarian slang for prussian and Bayer means Bavarian. In English, there is the price/buyer pun so you really have to understand both languages to get this.
German/Chinese
At the beginning of his short story "The Dead Lady of Clown TownThe Dead Lady of Clown Town
"The Dead Lady of Clown Town" is a science fiction short story by Cordwainer Smith, set in his Instrumentality of Mankind future history. It was originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1964. It was included in the collection The Best of Cordwainer Smith and most recently in The...
," science fiction author Cordwainer Smith
Cordwainer Smith
Cordwainer Smith – pronounced CORDwainer – was the pseudonym used by American author Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger for his science fiction works. Linebarger was a noted East Asia scholar and expert in psychological warfare...
wrote,
- Go back to An-fang, the Peace Square at An-fang, the Beginning Place at An-fang, where all things start. Bright it was. Red Square, dead square, clear square, under a yellow sun.
One of the Chinese readings of An-fang is "Peace Square" and Anfang is the German word for "beginning."
Japanese
The theme song to the animeAnime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
series His and Her Circumstances contains the following pun;
- -You may dream, masshiro na…
- (You may dream, pure white…)
"You may" sounds like yume, the Japanese word for "dream".
The song Hey Ya!
Hey Ya!
"Hey Ya!" is a song written and produced by André 3000 for his 2003 album The Love Below, part of the hip hop duo OutKast's double album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. The song takes influence from funk and rock music...
by Outkast
OutKast
Outkast is an American hip hop duo based in East Point, Georgia, consisting of Atlanta native André "André 3000" Benjamin and Savannah, Georgia-born Antwan "Big Boi" Patton. They were originally known as Two Shades Deep but later changed the group's name to OutKast...
sounds like the word heya which means "room."
The pun can be taken further by adding "watashi no" in front of "hey ya" to make it sound like "my room" in Japanese.
The letter "e" when called by its name sounds like the Japanese ii which means "good." So anything beginning with a long "e" sound can be called "good x." For example e-mail - ii-mail - good mail.
Japanese/Portuguese
In the film Gaijin, a Brazilian Odyssey written by Jorge Durán and Tizuka Yamasaki and directed by Tizuka Yamasaki, newly immigrant Japanese agricultural laborers are struggling to accommodate to Brazilian culture. At mealtime, the Brazilian cook serves up a stew of feijoada to a nonplussed Japanese.- [the Japanese] Kome!
- [the cook] Come!
- [the Japanese] Kome!
- [the cook] Come!
Neither one speaks the language of the other — but each thinks he is being understood. Kome, pronounced KO-MAY, is Japanese for "rice," while Come, with the same pronunciation, is Portuguese for "Eat" (imperative). This humorous contretemps roughly translates as: "But I want rice"; "That's right, go ahead, eat this"; "No, I want rice"; "Yes, yes eat it".
Latin
Following General Sir Charles James NapierCharles James Napier
General Sir Charles James Napier, GCB , was a general of the British Empire and the British Army's Commander-in-Chief in India, notable for conquering the Sindh Province in what is now Pakistan.- His genealogy :...
's 1843 conquest of Sindh
Sindh
Sindh historically referred to as Ba'ab-ul-Islam , is one of the four provinces of Pakistan and historically is home to the Sindhi people. It is also locally known as the "Mehran". Though Muslims form the largest religious group in Sindh, a good number of Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus can...
in India, the satirical magazine Punch
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...
published a cartoon in which the despatch to his commanders was "Peccavi", meaning, in Latin "I have sinned" (I have Sindh). (The joke was the pun; but the cartoon was about the sin: the slaughter of some 26,000 Indians for no particular purpose, and even against direct orders not to take Sindh.)
After the capture of Lucknow
Lucknow
Lucknow is the capital city of Uttar Pradesh in India. Lucknow is the administrative headquarters of Lucknow District and Lucknow Division....
in 1857 Lord Clyde
Colin Campbell, 1st Baron Clyde
Field Marshal Colin Campbell, 1st Baron Clyde GCB, KSI was a British Army officer from Scotland who led the Highland Brigade in the Crimea and was in command of the ‘Thin red line’ at the battle of Balaclava...
(or one of his officers) is supposed to have telegraphed home, "Nunc fortunatus sum" I am in luck now.
In both of these examples, the double meaning is generated by comparison of the English translation to the Indian place name (the Latin word or phrase is not actually part of the pun).
Māori
- "Et tu, Brutus?"
- "Why are you speaking Māori?"
(From the film Sione's Wedding
Sione's Wedding
Sione's Wedding , is a 2006 comedic film directed by Chris Graham and written by James Griffin and Oscar Kightley, and produced by South Pacific Pictures.- Plot :...
. "E tu" is Māori for "Stand up".)
Norwegian
Det er ikke farten som dreper, det er smellet. means "It's not the speed that kills, it's the bang.". By using the Norwegian words for "speed" (fart) and "bang" (smell) one gets the phrase "It's not the fart that kills, it's the smell.".A Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
tourist visited London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and wanted to take a taxi
Taxicab
A taxicab, also taxi or cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice...
. He opened the door to what he thought was the passenger side, and was surprised to find the driver sitting there. He said: "I'm sorry, but in my country the rat is on the other side.". The Norwegian word for "steering wheel
Steering wheel
A steering wheel is a type of steering control in vehicles and vessels ....
" is ratt.
Another Norwegian tourist took a taxi. When he reached his destination, he realized that he didn't have any money. He said to the taxi driver: "I'm sorry, I cannot pay because I'm black." (In Norwegian, blakk means "broke"). The taxi driver turned and the Norwegian realized that the taxi driver was, in fact, black. He apologized and said: "I'm so sorry, but in my country we call all poor people black.".
Spanish
This story is told in Spanish (ignoring inconsistencies about which animals live in which continents). A European zoo contracted with a man who was given a long list of animals the zoo needed. The contractor and his staff went to Africa with the list and caught all the animals on the list.As they were returning to Europe on a train with all the animals the jaguar (Spanish: jaguar) died and the contractor was distressed about the complication and cost of having to go back with all the animals just to catch one jaguar. Someone in his staff suggested they could take a fox (Spanish: zorro), of which they had one extra, and paint it to look like a jaguar thereby saving the need to go back. So this they did and continued on to Europe where they delivered all the animals to the zoo, including the "jaguar".
The zoo promptly put the newly arrived "jaguar" in the same enclosure with other jaguars but they would not mix. The new one cowered in a corner while the old ones looked at it distrustingly. This went on for some time until finally one of the resident jaguars slowly walked up to the new arrival and asked "Jaguar you?" (Pun: How are you?), to which the new arrival responded "I am zorry" (Pun: I am a fox).
Spanish/French
The story is best told in English, as the pun is not immediately obvious, but anyone with a sufficient knowledge of Spanish and French will understand it regardless. A Spaniard and a Frenchman are waiting on a train platform for their respective true loves. The train arrives, and the Spanish lady descends gracefully into the arms of the Spaniard. The Frenchman's love follows her, but catches her foot on the step and trips, causing her skirts to fly up and embarrassing her greatly. The Frenchman says to her, "Do not worry, my dear, c'est la vie!" The Spaniard replies, "¡Yo tambien!"The pun is that "c'est la vie," French for "that's life" (a common saying to brush off minor misfortunes), sounds exactly like like "se la vi" in Spanish, which roughly translates to "I saw it."
Russian
A common Russian joke about an Irishman in a Russian airport.- "I need two tickets to Dublin."
- "Куда, блин?" (Kuda, blin?)
- "To Dublin."
The second phrase is a question with an exclamation, meaning: "Where, damn it?" The last one sounds like an annoyed reply in Russian: "Туда, блин!" (Tuda, blin!), which means "There, damn it!".
Indian languages: Tamil and Punjabi
A Tamilian (speaker of TamilTamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
) says "Tamil teri ma?", to which a Punjabi
Punjabi people
The Punjabi people , ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ), also Panjabi people, are an Indo-Aryan group from South Asia. They are the second largest of the many ethnic groups in South Asia. They originate in the Punjab region, which has been been the location of some of the oldest civilizations in the world including, the...
man answers, "Punjabi tera baap, oye!"
The first is a question, which in Tamil means "Do you understand Tamil?" but in Punjabi sounds like "Tamil is your mother" (a sort of slur or slight on the person or his ethnicity, similar to "yo momma!"). To this, the Punjabi man, offended, responds explosively with "Punjabi (the language) is your daddy!" (offensive; you and your language are inferior to Punjabi).
See also
- Homophonic translationHomophonic translationHomophonic translation renders a text in one language into a near-homophonic text in another language, usually with no attempt to preserve the original meaning of the text. In one homophonic translation, for example, English "sat on a wall" is rendered as French "s'étonne aux Halles" 'is...
- LoanwordLoanwordA loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
- Macaronic languageMacaronic languageMacaronic refers to text spoken or written using a mixture of languages, sometimes including bilingual puns, particularly when the languages are used in the same context . The term is also sometimes used to denote hybrid words, which are in effect internally macaronic...
- Phono-semantic matchingPhono-semantic matchingPhono-semantic matching is a linguistic term referring to camouflaged borrowing in which a foreign word is matched with a phonetically and semantically similar pre-existent native word/root....
- Code mixingCode mixingCode-mixing refers to the mixing of two or more languages or language varieties in speech.Some scholars use the terms "code-mixing" and "code-switching" interchangeably, especially in studies of syntax, morphology, and other formal aspects of language...