Fake Obama, fake English
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Earlier today, BBC News posted this article:
"Chinese Obama speaks 'fake' English" (9/21/15)
Embedded at the top of the article is this video in which actor Xiao Jiguo displays his talents at impersonating Obama:
Here's the entire text of the brief article:
A Chinese man who has made his name as a professional impersonator of US President Barack Obama has embarked on a new film career.
Xiao Jiguo has landed a number of bit roles this year in Chinese movies.
His latest one is in the detective comedy Huo Bao, where he plays a gangster named 'Black Prince Charming'.
I'm wondering if any Language Log readers can unlock the secret to what makes Xiao Jiguo's fake English sound like English, though, as he himself says in the clip, "Nobody can understand it" (shéi dōu tīng bù dǒng 谁都听不懂).
This reminds me of when I was in Nepal and little urchins would come up to me to display their "English" skills. It sounded something like this: "whe- wha- whu- whi-…".
Fake English of the sort spoken by Xiao Jiguo is different from Chinglish, about which I shall write a long post later this evening introducing a rich collection of some classics and many new gems that I hadn't encountered before.
[h.t. Ben Zimmer]
Ben Zimmer said,
September 21, 2015 @ 6:51 pm
Along the same lines, see these LL posts:
"Prisencolinensinainciusol" (10/25/09)
"What English sounds like if you have Wernicke's aphasia" (10/22/11)
Chris C. said,
September 21, 2015 @ 8:27 pm
Nonsense foreign double-talk was a standard of American vaudeville. The Muppets' Swedish Chef is a late example, but Sid Caesar was a master of it. Here's him as "The German General": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m6Czgl1acU
[(bgz) And see: "How Sid Caesar learned double-talk" (LL, 2/13/14).]
David Moser said,
September 21, 2015 @ 9:48 pm
He's got the body language and facial expression. That's all politicians really need, anyway. I think he could beat Donald Trump.
Sergey said,
September 22, 2015 @ 12:13 am
My guess about the fake English would be the intonations. Each language has different intonations in a sentence. Well, except that the tonal languages have intonations not in a sentence but syllable-by-syllable, and that's why the Chinese speech has been historically compared by Europeans with cat's meaowing. But it's still intonations. I think this guy imitates the US English intonations and especially Obama's intonations pretty well. And maybe also the "average sounds".
Michael Watts said,
September 22, 2015 @ 5:19 am
Watching a short news spot on a Chinese channel for foreigners, I was struck by the announcer's intonation — it seemed to me that her tone wandered up and down in a way which would have been natural for English, if it had been properly connected to the words. I'm sure she spent a long time learning how to do that, but it's a pretty odd effect to hear one English sentence delivered with a pitch contour that would be appropriate for a different English sentence, but definitely not the one it's actually being used with.
Steven Marzuola said,
September 24, 2015 @ 7:39 pm
The video is gone. Can you suggest a replacement?