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Tintin & Co: Babelfish swimming around in their heads?

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drizzt
Member
#1 · Posted: 31 Dec 2004 08:35
Hi guys. I'm new to this forum. First post.

Ever wondered how everyone understands each other in the Tintin world?

There's never any need for translators. Be it Chinese, Inca, Syldavian, English or just about any language, Tintin understands, and so does everyone else. Weird, huh? I guess Hergé figured it would have been a major obstacle to bring the language issue into his world.

Or maybe everyone's got Babelfish swimming around in their heads!!!?
moulinsard
Member
#2 · Posted: 1 Jan 2005 22:02
Well it's obvious - they have a universal translator like in Star Trek!
Syldavia
Member
#3 · Posted: 3 Jan 2005 09:58
Well, I guess most of Tintin enemies and friends speak English.
jockosjungle
Member
#4 · Posted: 3 Jan 2005 19:15
Everyone speaks English! Pretty obvious from the text in the balloons ;)

Rik
drizzt
Member
#5 · Posted: 4 Jan 2005 06:23
Actually, if we gonna get technical, everyone speaks French, which was later translated to English.

The point I was trying to make, though, is that many of these people shouldn't be speaking French or English.

If you had to find an ancient Incan civilization in the Peruvian jungles, there would be a language barrier.

If you had to meet Tibetan monks, there would be a language barrier.

Hergé decided to ignore that fact, understandably so; it would be to cumbersome in a 62 page format.
Karaboudjan
Member
#6 · Posted: 6 Jan 2005 13:21
This is something that often gave me pause...

If we assume that Tintin and the Thompsons are French, it's no surprise they should understand one another.

The Captain and Allan, although Brits, have spent years at sea, so therefore would have picked up various lingoes, if not be entirely fluent.

(I sometimes wonder whether the Captain's descent into truly bizarre language reflects his role as a non-native speaker going haywire in another tongue. While he rattles through a stream of other languages in 'Destination Moon', the rest of the time he doesn't seem very handy with other tongues).

Castafiore, although very enthusiastically Italian, speaks French/English (however you prefer it) with an accent; General Alcazar speaks French/English (with smatterings of Spanish) in a Latin American accent.
Dr Muller must know English to blend in around Sussex and/or Scotland, and probably speaks French too.

But when it comes to Chang- an orphaned Chinese boy, who has never met a white person before (re: his remarks when Tintin saves him from drowning), or Abdullah, who is, after all, only six, and has had a very cosseted home life in the East... the mind boggles. Possibly the Emir (who must know enough of other languages to get by, although he assumes Tintin can read Arabic) has had professors in to teach him, perhaps not.

And what about Sir Francis and Red Rackham? Or all the Syldavians?

Who on earth knows?

Perhaps we shouldn't really be quibbling, but just enjoy them as great stories. After all, in films foreign officials when left to their own devices speak English; this is part of the same conceit. If everyone was realistically shown talking in their own languages, the stories would become an impenetrable fog.
yamilah
Member
#7 · Posted: 5 Jul 2005 16:42
Karaboudjan
General Alcazar speaks French/English (with smatterings of Spanish) in a Latin American accent.

Does General Alcazar have an accent in all four English version albums?

In the original versions, he has an accent when he's abroad (i.e. in Seven Crystal Balls & Red Sea Sharks), but no accent at all when he's home (namely in Broken Ear & Picaros)...

Does anyone have an idea about that?
Karaboudjan
Member
#8 · Posted: 6 Jul 2005 10:27
Guess he must be speaking Spanish on his home turf, then...
jock123
Moderator
#9 · Posted: 6 Jul 2005 15:54
Karaboudjan
If we assume that Tintin and the Thompsons are French

Sorry to bring this up so long after your post was made, but I think you might mean that we assume that T and T&T are French-speaking Belgians, rather than French. I’m not certain if that is possible from the texts; I don’t know how a Flemish person in Brussels speaking French would give themselves away - does Hergé offer any clues in the way he writes the dialogue - using Flemish expressions or turns of phrase, say, for the Thom(p)sons?
Danagasta
Member
#10 · Posted: 6 Jul 2005 16:16
If you had to find an ancient Incan civilisation in the Peruvian jungles, there would be a language barrier.
A neat note here is that most people who speak Quechua (the language of the Inca Native people)also speak Spanish or another European language. The people shown in that particular book blended into less traditional society (noteworthy example: Rupac Inca Huaco) and still went back to their historical homeland to keep traditions. Some of my own people still do that, but it's a more recent development--the idea isn't really that strange at all ^_^
Courtney

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