Poirot Speak: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

On TV, many foreign people speak a weird mixture of English and their own language, often applying a [[Just a Stupid Accent|ridiculous accent]] to both. As in, "[[Herr Doktor|Ich bin ein expert psychiatrist]], especially skilled in ein field of phobias. Mmm, very well, mein Herr... please sit down while ich deal with your kleinem Problem." Interestingly, while they have no problems of saying tougher words like "skateboard" and "movie theater" in perfect English, they have to fall back on their native language for words such as "yes" and "no".

 

 

{{examples}}

== Anime & Manga ==

* Mio Hio in ''[[D.N.Angel]]'' mixes in English words with Japanese, both of which are accented.

*** Well, some Cajun people speaks a dialect called "Cajun French", which is basically french words with english grammar (and outdated French words too, since it split from french a few centuries ago). It's no wonder than a cajun guy like Gambit ended here with this background, and is, for once, a totally [[Justified Trope]]

** According to legend, Austrians who saw the movie would exclaim something like "Oh my god! We don't actually sound like that... Do we?"

* The modern Vladek Spiegelman in ''[[Maus]]'' speaks in the "foreign grammar, English vocabulary" variant, making this [[Truth in Television]] unless the author, his son, was using artistic license.

* In ''[[Strontium Dog]]'', the presumably Norwegian Wulf uses ''der'' for ''the'' ([[Did Not Do the Research|though in Norwegian 'the' is a suffix to the noun, not a standalone word before it]]), and ''ja'' for ''yes''. His sentence structure also varies between sensible and Yoda-like.

* War comics, especially titles like ''[[Commando (Comic Book)|Commando]]'' and [[Stock Parodies]] thereof, tend to ramp this [[Up to Eleven]], especially for [[Those Wacky Nazis]].

* Marlene and Petite, the West German and French members of ''[[Jet Dream (Comic Book)|Jet Dream]] and her Stunt-Girl Counterspies'', fit this trope.

 

* A meta example: This trope is endemic among anime fanfic writers who have picked up a handful of basic Japanese words. Some writers will never deign to use English words like "Yes," "Thank you," or "Good morning," because [[Fan Dumb|you aren't an anime fan unless you know basic Japanese]]. This is particularly jarring when you ''do'' know basic Japanese, the author doesn't, and they [[Blind Idiot Translation|try to use Japanese that they haven't learned yet.]]

** The above goes for ''onore'' and ''kisama'' in many fandoms.

** And they're convinced that Kit and Vixen are Japanese.

 

== Film ==

* A classic film example is Inspector Clouseau from the ''[[Pink Panther]]'' movies, expertly played by Peter Sellers. Subversion: Clouseau's horrendous (and fake) French accent was so thick the French characters in the movies had moments where they could not understand him.

** Several of the jokes are actually based on people '''expecting''' him to speak like this: for example, he says English ''room'' like the French ''rhume'' (cold (the virus))...

* In ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]'', recognizable words in the French and German dialogue are occasionally reproduced untranslated in the subtitles, producing a Poirot-Speak-like effect even though the characters are speaking entirely in their own languages.

** It actually comes off more like [[Gratuitous German]], since it's mostly just words like "wunderbar," "mein Fuehrer," "ja," or "nein."

** [[Harry Turtledove]] uses the same tactic to make sure you don't forget that people with French names in obviously French-speaking places speak French, or whatever other lingual group the story focuses on. In the [[Worldwar]] series, very little of The Race's language is ever translated into English in the text, but they have distinctive speech patterns which are often indicated (such as the 'interrogative cough'), which people will often use even when speaking human languages which have their own auditory cues to indicate that a question is being asked.

* In the novel version of '''[[2010: The Year We Make Contact|2010]]'' (which portrays rather friendlier Soviet-American relations than the film), the "Russlish" spoken aboard the craft is something of a running joke among the crew of the ''Leonov'', with "STAMP OUT RUSSLISH" posters being mentioned at one point. The American viewpoint character, Heywood Floyd, even mentions speaking to another American (Walter Curnow) in Russian at one point. This is, as noted below, [[Truth in Television]]: mixtures of Russian and English have proven to become remarkably common in space, where Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts frequently spend months together (first aboard ''Mir'', and now on the ISS), although when the book came out (1982) only one US-USSR joint project (1975's Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, which lasted all of 44 hours) had ever been tried.

* The Hungarian Toby Esterhase from ''[[The Quest for Karla]]'' trilogy, who manages to do this in multiple languages.

 

 

== Professional Wrestling ==

 

== Stand-up Comedy ==

 

 

* [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'', in which a group of Mexicans who speak Poirot Speak are redundantly subtitled. "Hola, señor" has an asterisk placed next to it, and the footnote at the bottom of the page helpfully translates it as "Hello, mister"; the word "policia" is spoken four times in a single speech (it is, in fact, the ''only'' Spanish word on the page), and the comic dutifully provides four footnotes reading "police."

* Anja Donlan from ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' is not a native English speaker. This is shown in one [[Flash Back]], where she makes several grammar mistakes. (By the present day, over a decade later, her English is pretty much perfect.)

* The [[Those Wacky Nazis|nazis]] in ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]''.

* In ''[[Darths and Droids]]'', Count Dooku is apparently [[Space X|Space French]], so he uses lots of Space French words in his speech. By [[Translation Convention]], Space French sounds exactly like French.

* [[Elf Blood]]'s Carlita Delacroix is the most [[Egregious]] offender of this. Interestingly, although she had a Cuban mother and a French father, she only ever talks with a French accent.

** Hell, it might even be completely put on seeing as she went to school with the others and they don't have any kind of accent whatsoever.

** The Sages, being remnants of the original Alfen civilisation, will occasionally pepper their speech with Germanisms.

* The [[Remix Comic]] version of ''[[Jet Dream (webcomic)|Jet Dream]]'' [[Exaggerated Trope|exaggerates the trope]] to ridiculous levels. Marlene and Petite are even worse than [[Jet Dream (Comic Book)|their original comic book counterparts]], and any minor character from another country is guaranteed to have an utterly ridiculous accent and speech pattern.

 

== Web Original ==

* Zer Germans of ''[[AH Dot Com the Series]]'' use a combination of this an [[Funetik Aksent]]. [[Lampshaded]], as this is said to be a side effect of the Stereotypica Virus that ravaged their world.

* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series|Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series]]'' has the Kaiba Corps Nazi's, Kaiba's two lackeys who speak like this. When Kaiba asks them to tone it down they hastily agree "Yes mein führer."

** Many of these pidgins eventually become fully fledged creole languages later on, combining many aspects of the languages they were derived from.

* In ''[[Michael Palin]]'s New Europe'', the people who are showing him around do miss out words when speaking English to him and one did use the Romanian word for "yes" rather than the English one.

* Often justified in real life. Children raised by parents who primarily speak one language in a place where most people speak another will often grow up speaking to their parents in unusual combinations of both. Typically, verbs, pronouns and grammatic structure will remain in the parents' native tongue, while nouns and and adjectives will shift far more quickly to the new language. The result is something almost identical to Poirot Speak. In some cases, it can be how pidgin languages, like Bungee or Chiac in Canada, are formed.

** Franco-Manitobans (and other fully fluently bilingual people) do this, leading those of us who have to switch brain-language gears before changing languages completely in the dust.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Artistic License Linguistics]]

[[Category:Language Tropes]]