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Languages/dialects that are ’laughed at’ | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| AlephBey Tetraglot Groupie India Joined 4789 days ago 41 posts - 137 votes  Speaks: English, Hindi*, Urdu, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 1 of 54 08 January 2012 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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About four years ago, when I was in class tenth, I recall having a certain Hindi class-
the teacher would make us all read out by turn from a literature primer and later on the chapter would be actively discussed. I don't quite recall the story, but somewhere in the middle of the chapter, a character who was supposed to be a villager from rural north India utters a nondescript comment in his native Bihari dialect. The entire class immediately broke out into laughter, for a full ten seconds. This was hardly a unique situation, as I've seen eastern dialects of Hindi being lampooned quite frequently, in informal contexts as well as popular media. My father would often watch 'Mahuaa', a T.V. channel in Bhojpuri (variously regarded as a separate language or as a dialect of Hindi), for the simple reason that the lines of dialogue in a localized version of a popular Hindi game show struck him as greatly funny. And here I'll admit, for some reason I really can't even explain myself, even I felt rather tickled. My experience with languages tells me that it's not something unique to Hindi and its dialect continuum. The Kansai/Osaka dialect of Japanese is similarly employed to evoke a comical effect. Japanese people apparently find this video insanely funny; featuring a popular anime character dubbed in her original voice speaking in the Osaka dialect. Nothing intrinsically funny in what she said, just a translation of her standard Japanese lines, "Peter, Peter, come and see! The mountain is burning, whatever must be the matter? The clouds, the snow; they're all engulfed in fire!" Comedians often try to imitate the Osaka dialect to amuse people. Occasionally, a single comment would be made in that dialect to lighten the mood and elicit an amused chuckle. Is there a similar phenomenon in your native language? Have you ever tried to avoid talking in your native dialect for fear of evoking laughter? What are your ideas on 'why' exactly do certain forms of speech acquire a hilarious undertone? Edited by AlephBey on 08 January 2012 at 9:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5454 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 2 of 54 08 January 2012 at 6:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Norway comedians make fun of dialects from all over the country, but the dialect spoken in the county of Østfold
(south-eastern corner of the country) seems to be a favourite victim. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 3 of 54 08 January 2012 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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In Sweden we think all Norwegians sound hilarious. We sometimes place Norwegian actors in Swedish comedies simply because they're so funny to listen to, as in Ole Bramserud's immortal "Vibrasjonsdempere", or the ever popular Fleksnes. Edited by Ari on 08 January 2012 at 7:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 4 of 54 08 January 2012 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | ||
Great. Damn you, now I'm going to have to hunt down that movie. Is that part of the Sällskapsresan series of movies? It looks hilarious. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vikavictoria Pentaglot Groupie United States Joined 5050 days ago 49 posts - 74 votes Speaks: Persian, English*, German, Spanish, Tajik Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 54 08 January 2012 at 8:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, Farsi has the dialect of Tajiki, spoken in Tajikistan. People who speak Farsi (that, which is spoken in Iran), laugh at the way Tajiks speak Tajiki since it sounds like a mix between a child speaking Farsi and someone who is kinda a debil speaking Farsi and doesn't know the real meaning of idioms and uses simple words and sometimes the wrong words, which end up giving the Tajik's sentence a funny undertone, as perceived by the Farsi speaker.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| theomegamale Newbie United States Joined 4965 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, Danish, Thai, Greek, Hungarian | Message 6 of 54 08 January 2012 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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In the English-speaking world, people from Southern America are often laughed at because of their accents and idioms. English people also get a lot of it. Pretty much anyone that doesn't have a "Normal American" accent is made fun of.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6910 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 54 08 January 2012 at 8:39pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes, it's from the second movie "Snowroller". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 8 of 54 08 January 2012 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | ||
I grew up in northern Minnesota and had a rather thick accent. When I moved to California, everyone made fun of it, enough so that I went through accent reduction classes. Then the movie "Fargo" came out and suddenly it was a cool accent. Tastes change with exposure. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful |
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