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[[File:stupidfont.jpg|link=Aladdin (1992 Disney film)|frame|Because reading Arabic is tricky.]]
If a movie or cartoon is set in a particular [[Hollywood History|period]] or [[Hollywood Atlas|region]], sometimes the creator might want to show certain details to the audience through a sign in the background. However, said most of the audience are educated in the English language. So in order to avoid breaking the feel of the setting, the scene might just have English text in written with a [[
This can also occur on the covers of books or on movie posters in order to evoke the feel of the work's setting.
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* The English-language cover art for ''[[Excel Saga (manga)|Excel Saga]]'', both anime and manga, uses a Japanese-styled font for the title. Bonus points for using actual katakana characters turned Latin characters.
* The kanji in ''[[Black Butler]]'s'' title are written in the style of Old English blackletter calligraphy, reflecting the show's Victorian English setting. (No, really; see its page illustration!)
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* Typesetting, one of the major tasks in creating anime [[Fan Sub]]s, involves finding or in some cases creating fonts to match onscreen Japanese text, which are then placed over or near the original text.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* [[DC Comics]] is fond of its use of "Interlac", a universal language of the future which naturally just looks like the Latin alphabet redone in some "spacey font".
* Used extensively in ''[[Asterix]]'', not only for writing but also in the [[Speech Bubbles]] of characters speaking foreign languages. Attempts by characters to speak another language are often shown as written in the appropriate font, but jumbled-up or ragged.
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* Used to a great extent in ''[[Fables]]''. The occasional [[Backwards R]] makes something instantly Russian.
==
* [[Peter Jackson]]'s ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' has both: Although lots of texts appear 'properly' written in [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]]'s constructed scripts for Middle-earth, various instances of text are rendered as English in Latin letters for the convenience of the viewer, but made to look vaguely like the scripts they are supposed to be. Most notable is probably the Tengwar-imitating font (an originally Elven script, but universally used), even down to the ''tehtar'' diacritics, which in proper Tengwar are vowel signs and here are added to the corresponding vowel letters.
* ''[[Quantum of Solace]]'' used exotic fonts to label each country the story takes place in. [[Maddox]] criticized this use of the trope in his review of it, saying that its use crossed the line into pretentious and implies that [[Viewers are Morons]].
* ''[[Around the World In 80 Days]]'' (2004) has this with all the map fonts throughout (eg, Hindi-style script for the Chyrons in India, etc.).
== [[Literature]] ==
* Several [[Fu Manchu]] book covers (and movie and television posters) often feature English words written in Asian brushstrokes.
* In the [[Discworld]] books, [[Terry Pratchett]] sometimes plays with this. For example, in ''[[
** From the Annotated Pratchett File:
{{quote|The font used by the golems in the UK editions is clearly designed to look like Hebrew lettering. For some reason, the font used in the American editions is not.}}
** In "Feet of Clay", the Golems use the Hebrewish looking font. In "Making Money", Golems use the Eochian alphabet created/discovered by Doctor [[John Dee]], astrologer to [[Elizabeth I of England|Queen Elizabeth I]].
** Überwaldian is shown with a blackletter font.
** In some of the books, strong accents are indicated by a change of font mid-sentence, sometimes around a single letter.
*** When someone is speaking Klatchian, they have the whole sentence in the pseudo-Arabic font. When they're speaking Morporkian with a Klatchian accent, the letter that changes font is usually an H. If you actually know anything about Arabic, this is a bit of a [[Bilingual Bonus]], because there are three Arabic letters that can be transliterated as H, and they all sound different.
****
*****
* The ''[[Thursday Next]]'' series features an ancient prophet who speaks "Old English"... that is, his dialogue is written in Old English font. One character can understand him (as well as the reader, of course), but the rest really do behave as though he were speaking an ancient dialect.
** And then there's the native language of the Book World, which is Courier Bold
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "Turn Left", the signs saying {{spoiler|Bad Wolf}} are in English but in a Chinese-looking font.
** In ''The Fires of Pompeii'', all writing is rendered in English in a Latin-looking font.
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*** Except for Welsh.
== [[Music]] ==
* Eurobeat label Hi-NRG Attack's ''Eurobeat Anthems'' album has its title written in mock katakana script.
* [[Type O Negative]]'s ''Dead Again'' album cover uses [[Mock Cyrillic]].
* One of the Chemical Brothers' albums uses an Arabic-styled font.
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* Adolf Kilroy, a tortoise who turned up from time to time in ''[[The Perishers]]'', not only had Hitler's face but spoke in Fraktur.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Prince of Persia|Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame]]''{{context}}
* A video game of ''The Hunt for Red October'' featured English text in an imitation Cyrillic font.
** Red Alert 3 had recently joined the faux-Cyrillic bandwagon, given the nature and setting of the game.
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* [[Total War]]: Shogun 2 does this for the logo.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Sinfest]]'' renders The Buddha's (very few) spoken lines in a font that mimics Sanskrit.
* The title of Brain Clevinger's ''[[How I Killed Your Master]]'' is written in English, but is easily mistaken for Kanji at first glance.
* In ''[[8-Bit Theater]]'', Black Mage pretends to be Blackbelt to talk to White Mage by speaking [[Japanese Ranguage]], [[Self-Demonstrating Article|lendeled in the Chinese lestaulant font]].
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[Aladdin (1992 Disney film)|Aladdin]]'': ''Crazy Hakim's Discount Fertilizer'' is written in Arabic brushstrokes on a sign near a cart of manure near the end of the "One Jump" chase scene.
** The title itself and the opening credits also appear in Foreign Looking Font. No ''real'' Arabic appears in the movie at all, with the possible exception of a sign over Jafar's door; it's either English in a foreign-looking font or random scribbles that look like what Arabic looks like to people who don't speak Arabic. (Arabic Is Just A Bunch Of Scribbles should be a trope.)
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* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]'': Starting in Season 2, printed text takes the form of oddly distorted English. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130728115453/http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120401142047/mlp/images/c/ca/Snips_and_Snails_on_the_newspaper_S2E23.png][https://web.archive.org/web/20120504205007/http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120204180041/mlp/images/6/65/Rainbow_Dash_holding_Daring_Do_book_S2E16.png]
== [[Real Life]] ==
* Carol Twombly's [[wikipedia:Lithos|Lithos]] typeface is based on Greek letters, though it has the Latin alphabet and Arabic numbers... though it is now frequently used for an African or Native American feel.
* Look hard enough and you'll find fonts in fake Hebrew, fake Arabic, fake Japanese, fake Greek...{{context}}
** The free font site Dafont.com is full of them, as are myriad other free font sites.
** A fake Korean font exists.{{context}}
** A fake Hindi font exists in which the letters are just written curvier and have a line on top.{{context}}
* The absolute king of this trope is Papyrus. It's generically foreign looking enough that it can stand in for nearly anything, from Greek, to Middle Eastern to Chinese. Papyrus is overused to the point where there's a [http://www.papyruswatch.com/ blog] dedicated to looking for it.
** A lot of its usage probably comes from the one-two punch of it being both a foreign-looking and ancient-looking font.
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* Justified in that establishing and keeping a mood or theme is incredibly important—rule of thumb, if it's important enough to dress up the scene, it's important enough to dress up the font.
** This is pretty much what the sub-group of Graphic Designers known as Typographers do for a living.
* Use of sigma for E makes something instantly Greek. But sigma's a consonant! Eta's a vowel
** Similarly, the substitution of V for U makes something instantly Latin. Never mind those J's, K's (as in [[Biggus Dickus]]), and W's, none of which the Romans had.
*** the Romans did use K, but it wasn't used often (Kalendae is the example the Other Wiki gives)
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Language Tropes]]▼
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
▲[[Category:Language Tropes]]
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