Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Difference between revisions
Hiding Behind the Language Barrier (view source)
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, 3 years agoThat is Censorship by Spelling, which is mentioned in the article section.
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{{examples}}
==
* ''Dogbert's Clues for the Clueless'' gives insulting people in a foreign language they can't understand as an example of rude behavior (though not as rude as saying [[Pig Latin|"ucket-bay ead-hay"]]):▼
{{quote|'''Foreign Speaker #1:''' Xmphlaca bi flucalaka un bijnana y aquaholder.<ref>His head is like a bucket</ref>▼
'''Foreign Speaker #2:''' Gne! }}▼
* In ''[[A Complete Turnabout]]'', Edgeworth and Franziska have a conversation about Franziska's past in German front of Phoenix, who only knows enough German to realize that Franziska does not like him eavesdropping.
== [[Film]] ==
* In ''[[Mission: Impossible (film)
* Attempted in ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]: The Two Towers'', when Legolas tells Aragorn in Elvish that Helm's Deep's defenders are outnumbered and will die, but Aragorn angrily yells in Common that he will die along with them before storming off.
* In ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]'', the Jew Hunter speaks in English so the French-speaking Jews hiding under the floorboards can't understand what he and the farmer are talking about.
* Oddly averted in ''[[Shanghai Knights]]''. Chon Wang has a private conversation with his sister about Roy without knowing that Roy is eavesdropping. For some reason, they have the conversation in English rather than their native language, which Roy would not know.
* In ''[[Braveheart]]'', Lord Hamilton attempts this using Latin during the first conference between Wallace and the Princess, assuming a Scotsman wouldn't speak or understand Latin. It doesn't work, since Wallace speaks both Latin and French.
* In [[The Boondock Saints|the
* In ''[[Close Encounters of the Third Kind]]'', Neary complains about this when Lacombe speaks to Laughlin in French.
* Pretty much the whole point of the movie ''[[Windtalkers]]''.
* In ''[[2 States]]'', Krish, which is an Hindi-speaking Punjabi, feels excluded when his girlfriend Ananya and her relatives speak in Tamil. Unfortunately, his way of addressing it is asking them to speak more in Hindi. While living in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, whose inhabitants are notorious for their regional fervor. The only thing his clueless comment achieves is that they speak in Tamil in his presence even more in obvious attempts to snub him.
== [[Literature]] ==
* Seen in ''[[Shanghai Girls]]''. Pearl and her parents speak Sze Yp - a Chinese dialect, but her younger sister May does not speak this dialect. When Pearl and May end up in Chinatown in the US, this language barrier prevents May from talking to the family she has married into, and pushes her out into the broader world.
* In ''[[Dune]]'', the deadly Count Fenring and his wife make heavy use of [[Obfuscating Stupidity]], including punctuating their speech with lots of drawn-out hmmmmmmmmmmmmmms as an apparent Verbal Tic. When the book switches to their point of view, it turns out the humming is a code language to let them privately converse and coordinate their act in full view of everyone.
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* One of the ''[[CSI: NY]]'' tie in novels has a subversion, with Stella and Lindsay processing a scene at a bakery. The owner thinks he's getting away with calling them a derrogatory Italian term for a female cop, but Stella speaks a little Italian, and though she's rusty, she knows exactly what he's saying.
== [[Live
* In the first season of ''[[24
* An episode of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' has a Chinese mother and daughter talk in Mandarin so House won't understand. [[Subverted Trope|Of course]], he speaks it. Another House example has House blackmailing a guy in Mandarin. Presumably, if he didn't get his money he'd repeat what he said in English.
* In ''[[Frasier]]'', Frasier and Niles have to speak French around Eddie the dog in order to not get him unnecessarily riled up over a potential walk.
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* On ''Impractical Jokers'' one time the mission was to get people to comment on bogus news stories in Times Square, and when approached two women commented "We don't speak English." It was lampshaded by the guy.
==
▲* ''Dogbert's Clues for the Clueless'' gives insulting people in a foreign language they can't understand as an example of rude behavior (though not as rude as saying [[Pig Latin|"ucket-bay ead-hay"]]):
* In [[World War Two]], the Japanese used former students who had studied in the US to listen in to American radio transmissions, so Navajo soldiers were used to speak their own language, completely baffling the Japanese.▼
▲{{quote|'''Foreign Speaker #1:''' Xmphlaca bi flucalaka un bijnana y aquaholder.<ref>His head is like a bucket</ref>
* Has been known to be [[Truth in Television]], when both parents speak a language their child does not.▼
▲'''Foreign Speaker #2:''' Gne! }}
* In both world wars, Welsh regiments of the British Army spoke Welsh in clear on radio transmissions, knowing the likelihood of a Welsh speaker turning up on the German/enemy side was vanishingly small. This idea was copied by the Americans, who used native Americans as signallers to similarly confound Japanese and German intercepts. Unfortunately for Welsh regiments in WW 2, Welsh was thought of by the Nazis as a dawn-language of the Aryan peoples, and a School of Celtic Studies had been set up at one German university. Once the Germans cottoned on, they had a certain number of Welsh speakers available to monitor radio transmissions... the practice was, however, maintained by Welsh units in the Far East. It is no longer used by the British army as so many countries have universities that teach Celtic languages. It did not go un-noticed that a fairly recent enemy, Argentina, actually has a Welsh-speaking minority population. And at least one university in Northern Ireland has a Celtic Studies department offering Welsh language as a module. For that reason, Welsh units serving in Ireland were strictly ordered to observe standard radio operating procedure and not to think of using the old trck, as it is just too well known.▼
== [[Video Games]] ==
* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', completing the quests leading up to the [[Wham! Episode|Battle of the Wrathgate]] leads to this exchange. A bug, however, temporarily allowed players to understand the spoilered Draconic part, which alluded to events that were only explicitly revealed in the Fall of the Lich King patch.
{{quote|'''Korialstrasz''':Do they know, my queen?
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'''Alexstrasza''': (to you) (Player), come to me. }}
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In a Movie Comics strip based on ''[[Windtalkers]]'', one of the two characters pretends to take the other prisoner and deliver him to the Japanese. The Japanese soldiers converse in Japanese and decide to kill them both, unbeknownst to them.
* In ''[[Kevin and Kell]]'', Kell and Frank speak Feline while discussing {{spoiler|Frank's plan to overthrow R.L.}} to prevent their fleas from catching word of this. {{spoiler|R.L. already knows Feline, making this a subversion}}
* Attempted by Lucien and Luther in ''[[Bite Me! (webcomic)
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In ''[[The Boondocks]]'' fastball episode the visiting Chinese team convince Huey to throw the game or else they'll get sent to death camps. This backfires when they gloat about it in Chinese in his presence, he responds (in Chinese) that he doesn't like to be laughed at. Cue asskicking.
* Invoked in an episode of ''[[Arthur (animation)|Arthur]]'', where each little sub-group invented their own language and only let a few people in on it. Arthur & Buster, Francine & Muffy, etc. Eventually they were so separated that nobody could understand anybody else - except George, who spoke in English because he hadn't been invited into anybody else's private little club.
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'''Marge''': [in Pig Latin] You know, I was young once, too.
'''Bart and Lisa''': [in Pig Latin] Crap. }}
== [[Real Life]] ==
▲* In [[World War
▲* Has been known to be [[Truth in Television]], when both parents speak a language their child does not.
▲* In both world wars, Welsh regiments of the British Army spoke Welsh in clear on radio transmissions, knowing the likelihood of a Welsh speaker turning up on the German/enemy side was vanishingly small. This idea was copied by the Americans, who used native Americans as signallers to similarly confound Japanese and German intercepts. Unfortunately for Welsh regiments in WW 2, Welsh was thought of by the Nazis as a dawn-language of the Aryan peoples, and a School of Celtic Studies had been set up at one German university. Once the Germans cottoned on, they had a certain number of Welsh speakers available to monitor radio transmissions... the practice was, however, maintained by Welsh units in the Far East. It is no longer used by the British army as so many countries have universities that teach Celtic languages. It did not go un-noticed that a fairly recent enemy, Argentina, actually has a Welsh-speaking minority population. And at least one university in Northern Ireland has a Celtic Studies department offering Welsh language as a module. For that reason, Welsh units serving in Ireland were strictly ordered to observe standard radio operating procedure and not to think of using the old trck, as it is just too well known.
* Yevgenia Ginzburg, in her memoir ''[[Journey into the Whirlwind]]'', claims she said something to someone in French in front of the NKVD watching over her. She had a feel for her individual guards and said she wouldn't have tried this with just any of them.
{{reflist}}
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