Is That a Fish in Your Ear?

The risk of this approach is that in many social and historical circumstances the foreign-soundingness of a translation—just like the slightly unnatural diction of a real foreigner speaking French (or English, or German … )—may be rejected as clumsy, false, or even worse.

In fact, the most obvious way to make a text sound foreign is to leave parts of it in the original. Such was the convention in Britain in the Romantic era. In the earliest translation of the novel now known in English as Dangerous Liaisons, for instance, characters refer to and address one another by their full titles in French (monsieur le vicomte, madame la présidente) and use everyday expressions such as Allez!, parbleu!, and ma foi! within sentences that are in other respects entirely in English.[25] Similarly, in recent translations of the novels of Fred Vargas, the lead character, Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg, retains his French rank of commissaire in charge of a clutch of brigadiers, but he talks to them in English.[26] Following the same logic of selective foreignism, German officers in most Second World War movies made in Hollywood speak natural English interrupted at regular intervals by Jawohl, Gott im Himmel, and Heil Hitler.

The device may be taken much further, in popular as well as classical works. The dubbed Italian version of Singin’ in the Rain, though it performs miracles of lip-synch in the translation of witty patter, leaves the sound track of the title song in the original English. A famous modern production of King Lear in Chinese has Cordelia speaking Shakespeare’s lines—she speaks the truth to her father in the true language of her speech.[27]

In general, however, translations only simulate the foreign-soundingness of foreign works. In fact, the challenge of writing something that sounds like English to speakers of other languages can even be met by not writing English at all.

English is heard around the world in pop songs, TV broadcasts, and so on by millions of people who do not understand the words of the lyrics, jingles, and reports. As a result there are large numbers of people who recognize the phonology of English—the kinds of sounds English makes—without knowing any English vocabulary or grammar. Some forty years ago, an Italian rock star performed a musical routine in which he pretended to be a teacher of English showing his class that you do not need to understand a single word in order to know what English sounds like. Sung to a catchy tune, Adriano Celentano’s “Prisencolinensinainciusol ol rait” is a witty and surprising simulation of what English sounds like—without being in English at all. However, the transcription of “anglogibberish” in textual form represents English-soundingness only when it is vocalized (aloud, or in your head) according to the standard rules for vocalizing Italian script. “Prisencolinensinainciusol ol rait,” which can be found on many currently available websites and in some cases with one of its possible transcriptions, is a specifically Italian fiction of the foreign.

It is equally possible to produce gibberish that sounds foreign to English ears. A famous example is the song sung by Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times (1936). Having got a job as a singing waiter, the hapless fellow finds himself on the restaurant dance floor with the band thumping out a French music-hall tune, “Je cherche après Titine”—but he does not know the words. Chaplin dances, mimes, looks perplexed. Paulette Goddard, in the wings, mouths, “Sing!” Our lip-reading is confirmed by the intertitle: “Sing! Never Mind the Words!”

Chaplin then launches into a ditty in Generic Immigrant Romance, which for English speakers only can be represented thus:

Se bella giu satore
Je notre so cafore
Je notre si cavore
Je la tu la ti la toi
La spinash o la bouchon
Cigaretto Portabello
Si rakish spaghaletto
Ti la tu la ti la toi
Senora pilasina
Voulez-vous le taximeter?
Le zionta su la sita
Tu la tu la tu la oi
Sa montia si n’amura
La sontia so gravora
La zontcha con sora
Je la possa ti la toit
Je notre so lamina
Je notre so consina
Je le se tro savita
Je la tossa vi la toit
Se motra so la sonta
Chi vossa l’otra volta
Li zoscha si catonta
Tra la la la la la la