Karaboudjan Member
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#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.
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