Language Log

John Considine found this circa 1880 advertisement in the Hong Kong 2013 catalog of Bernard Quaritch (with the note that "We have not been able to locate any other example of this kind of trade card"):

Sandeep Robert Datta posted this on Facebook, from the Beijing International Airport:

Bryan Van Norden sent in this photograph taken at the Hong Kong International Airport:

I received the following photograph of a sign taken by Son Ha Dinh in Damak, Nepal:

This fine instance of Saudinglish is found, together with other prime examples, in the following article: "Vous avez aimé le 'chinglish', vous allez adorer le 'saudinglish'!"

Ray Girvan ("Ibong Adarna: Google Mistranslate", 2/17/2014) documents one of the more bizarre machine-translation oddities in recent years:

Ibong Adarna is the title of a massively popular epic fantasy in the mythology and culture of the Philippines; it originally went under the snappy title of Corrido ng Pinagdaanang Buhay nang Tatlong Principeng, Magcacapatid na Anac nang haring Fernando at nang Reina Valeriana sa Caharian ng Berbania ("Corrido of the Traveled/Travailed Life of Three Princes, Sibling Children of King Fernando and Queen Valeriana of the Kingdom of Berbania"). Despite the Spanish names, it evidently pre-dates the Spanish Era in the Philippines.

You should read Ray's post for more background on the history, form, and significance of this work, whose title means "The Adarna Bird".  Because somehow — mischance? malice? — Google Translate came up with this:

Jim Unger recently got a new microwave oven made by Haier in China.  He soon noticed that, when the cooking is done, it displays the following notice:  GOOD.  Since that seemed a bit odd, Jim thought about it for awhile, but then realized that it must be a translation of Mandarin hǎole 好了 (lit., "has become good"), which can mean lots of things ("well; okay; all right; ready", and so forth), but in this case indicates "done".

The obituaries for the great comic Sid Caesar invariably mention his proficiency in "double-talk," mimicking the sounds (but not the sense) of foreign languages. (On the phenomenon of double-talk, see Mark Liberman's posts on yaourter here, here, here, and here.) It turns out that this was a talent Caesar had cultivated ever since he was a boy clearing tables at his father's restaurant in multi-ethnic Yonkers.

A friend of Brendan O'Kane in Beijing posted this screenshot of the Chinese-localized interface for her new Jawbone UP fitness tracker (alarm function) on Weixin last night:

From a section of the Singapore site "Stomp" called "Murder of the English Language" comes this mystifying entree name:

Among the visual jokes coming out of Russia on the occasion of the Sochi Olympics are some intriguing menu items:

Sing! King! Wa! Ta! Sing! King! Wa! Ta!

The words were being hastily shouted down a phone, with loud sounds of wind and waves in the background, and the emergency call center operator could make no sense of them. Attempts at conversing with the caller failed; he seemed not to understand English. Yet the tone was unmistakably urgent: someone was in danger of his life. But who? And where?

About 23 people died in the event that led to that desperate, unintelligible phone call. It happed in 2004, ten years ago today. My vagueness about the number of victims is because no one who knew all the facts wanted to talk about the circumstances (the skull of one victim was only found in 2010).

An anonymous correspondent sent in this photograph of a food package from New Taipei City, Taiwan: