{"id":38473,"date":"2018-05-31T07:20:07","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T12:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=38473"},"modified":"2018-05-31T09:53:14","modified_gmt":"2018-05-31T14:53:14","slug":"despacito-transcribed-with-mandarin-taiwanese-and-english-syllables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=38473","title":{"rendered":"\"Despacito\" transcribed with Mandarin, Taiwanese, and English syllables"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This amazing song from Taiwan seems to have been inspired by some Japanese cultural practices, which we will explore later in this post.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\u3010\u3107\u3107\u6a23\u3011\u7a7a\u8033\u6b4c\u8a5e\uff0d\u6162\u6162\u4f86\uff5cDespacito\uff5c\u99ac\u4e0a\u5b78\u6703\u7b2c\u4e00\u9996\u897f\u73ed\u7259\u8a9e\u6b4c\uff01\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SOhWknul034?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>First of all, the guy is singing Spanish, but using Mandarin and Taiwanese words, as well as a few short English words.\u00a0 Well, he's not really singing, but transcribing with Chinese characters and a few English syllables a very famous Spanish song, \"Despacito\" (\"Slowly\"), sung beautifully by a Puerto Rican.\u00a0 Not only do his transcriptions not make any sense on the whole, they amount to hilarious gibberish.<\/p>\n<p>Second, \u3107\u3107\u6a23, the handle of the artist, looks like a Japanese-style name.\u00a0 I wouldn't know what \u3107\u3107 mean if I interpret them as two Chinese characters, but I do recognize them as the repeated <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bopomofo\">bopomofo<\/a> symbol for the \"m\" sound, whose shape is derived from the archaic character and Kangxi radical 14 m\u00ec \u5196 (\"cover\").\u00a0 If we were pronouncing the \u6a23 \u00e0 la japonaise, it would be \"sama\" (\"Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms.\"), hence \"Momo sama\", but the way he himself pronounces his moniker is \"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCm6FPhSt1TLC7DPxLB9kx3w\">M<span class=\"dicpy\">\u014dm<\/span><span class=\"dicpy\">\u014d <\/span><\/a><span class=\"dicpy\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCm6FPhSt1TLC7DPxLB9kx3w\">y\u00e0ng<\/a>\".\u00a0 In Chinese, <\/span><span class=\"dicpy\">y\u00e0ng <\/span>\u6a23<span class=\"dicpy\"> means \"appearance; kind; sample; shape; form; pattern; style\".<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"dicpy\">I can spot at least half a dozen Taiwanese expressions in the transcription, several of them originally from Japanese.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In the title of the YouTube video, after the artist's name comes this:\u00a0 k\u014dng'\u011br g\u0113c\u00ed \u7a7a\u8033\u6b4c\u8a5e, which literally means \"empty ear lyrics\".\u00a0 That really looks Japanese &#8212; soramimi kashi.\u00a0 What does it mean?\u00a0 This is how the word is defined in jisho:\u00a0 \"<span class=\"meaning-meaning\">homophonic translation of song lyrics for comic effect<\/span>\u200b\".<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Soramimi\">Wikipedia<\/a> tells us that it is:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span class=\"meaning-abstract\">&#8230;<\/span>a <a title=\"Japanese language\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Japanese_language\">Japanese<\/a> term for <a title=\"Homophonic translation\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Homophonic_translation\">homophonic translation<\/a> of <a class=\"mw-redirect\" title=\"Song lyrics\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Song_lyrics\">song lyrics<\/a>, that is, interpreting lyrics in one language as similar-sounding lyrics in another language. A bilingual soramimi <a title=\"Word play\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Word_play\">word play<\/a> contrasts with a monolingual <a title=\"Mondegreen\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mondegreen\">mondegreen<\/a> or <a class=\"mw-redirect\" title=\"Homophonic transformation\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Homophonic_transformation\">homophonic transformation<\/a>, and is usually caused by <a title=\"Pareidolia\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pareidolia\">pareidolia<\/a>. Soramimi transcription is also commonly used in <a title=\"Animutation\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Animutation\">animutations<\/a> for comic effect.<\/p>\n<p>Although soramimi has been quite popular in Japan for some time (see below), most informants from Taiwan and China that I asked about it had never heard of the word.<\/p>\n<p>A language teacher told me that students often spontaneously use this technique as a mnemonic device for memorizing vocabulary items (e.g., d\u00e0og\u0113 \u9053\u54e5 [\"way brother\"] for \"dog\"), but it becomes a tour de force when used to transcribe an entire song.\u00a0 He comments further:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">While the music video looks cute and funny, the transcriptions (mostly in Mandarin, with a few words in Taiwanese) are actually random and don't really make any sense. So, from a language teacher's perspective, I would say this is more entertaining than educational. The transcriptions are for the most part combinations of unrelated words and phrases, so translating them would be pointless and even a bit ridiculous. Maybe that's the intention of this kind of work. Nevertheless, I was really impressed with the time and effort that was put into making this work.<\/p>\n<p>One of my correspondents tried to make a go of translating one section of the soramimi transcription.\u00a0 She says that, although the meaning of the transcription is nothing like that of the original song, the words and expressions used in the transcription must have actual meanings and cannot be just a cluster of unrelated characters.<\/p>\n<p>Starting from 0:41 in the video, the original Spanish lyrics are:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">S\u00ed, sabes que ya llevo un rato mir\u00e1ndote<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Tengo que bailar contigo hoy<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The actual meaning of this sentence is:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Yes, you know that I've been watching you for a while<br \/>\nI have to dance with you today<\/p>\n<p>The Chinese transcription in this video is:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">\u819d\uff0c\u5c0f\u5e03\u5e0c\u5047\u501f\u5695\u99ac\u6876\uff0c\u6c92\u4eba\u6295\u4ed6<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">\u5730\u516c\u7d66\u82ad\u6a02\u8ddf\u5730\u6e9d\u6cb9<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">X\u012b, xi\u01ceo B\u00f9x\u012b ji\u01ceji\u00e8 l\u01d4 m\u01cet\u01d2ng, m\u00e9i r\u00e9n t\u00f3u t\u0101<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">d\u00ec g\u014dng g\u011bi b\u0101l\u00e8 g\u0113n d\u00ecg\u014du y\u00f3u<\/span><\/p>\n<p>It sounds similar to the original lyrics but means something totally different. With the help of the pictures attached to the lyrics in the video, we may translate these verses as:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Knee, George W. Bush pretends to wash the toilet, but nobody votes for him.<br \/>\nTudigong (God of Soil and Earth) gives gutter oil (repeatedly cooked oil) to a guava.<\/p>\n<p>The word \"despacito\" as transcribed in the song is another good example of how soramimi transcription works in the hands of a skilled artist:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">di\u0113 sh\u00ec p\u00e0 x\u01d0t\u00f3u \u7239\u662f\u6015\u6d17\u5934 (\"dad is afraid of shampooing\")<\/p>\n<p>Observations by Nathan Hopson on soramimi in Japan, its birthplace:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">This is a great example of the \u7a7a\u8033 (soramimi) \"genre,\" which refers to the phenomenon of hearing something (usually a snippet) as if it was in your native language because you don't understand the language being spoken. It was the subject of a long-running and often very funny TV show in Japan, featuring the famous comedian Tamori. His \u7a7a\u8033\u30a2\u30ef\u30fc (Soramimi aw\u0101 = \"Soramimi Hour\") ran at least ten years.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Collections of \"greatest hits\" can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QiEzLrfX87U\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rX_Y6n258Bw\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">One of the more famous early soramimi YouTube videos was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GeeUSDW3tcA\">this one<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The song, which has lyrics in Romanian, was animated by a Japanese YouTuber according to what she heard. I recall that this was \"viral\" before we called videos \"viral.\"<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">For the video at the top of this post, apparently a Taiwanese YouTuber is doing the same thing with the song \"Despacito\", which was a massive hit last year. It was everywhere, no matter how I tried to avoid it, having \"topped the charts of 47 countries and reached the top 10 of ten others.\" (<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Despacito\">Wikipedia<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">So the Taiwanese YouTuber is \"hearing\" the Spanish lyrics of \"Despacito\" in his\/her native\/familiar languages.<\/p>\n<p>Here's the video of the original \"Despacito\" by Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee, with more than five billion (!) views:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Luis Fonsi - Despacito ft. Daddy Yankee\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kJQP7kiw5Fk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>And here are the lyrics to the Spanish song, if you want to try to match them to the Taiwan Mandarin version:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Ay<br \/>\nFonsi<br \/>\nDY<br \/>\nOh<br \/>\nOh no, oh no<br \/>\nOh yeah<br \/>\nDiridiri, dirididi Daddy<br \/>\nGo<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">S\u00ed, sabes que ya llevo un rato mir\u00e1ndote<br \/>\nTengo que bailar contigo hoy (DY)<br \/>\nVi que tu mirada ya estaba llam\u00e1ndome<br \/>\nMu\u00e9strame el camino que yo voy (Oh)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">T\u00fa, t\u00fa eres el im\u00e1n y yo soy el metal<br \/>\nMe voy acercando y voy armando el plan<br \/>\nSolo con pensarlo se acelera el pulso (Oh yeah)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Ya, ya me est\u00e1 gustando m\u00e1s de lo normal<br \/>\nTodos mis sentidos van pidiendo m\u00e1s<br \/>\nEsto hay que tomarlo sin ning\u00fan apuro<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Despacito<br \/>\nQuiero respirar tu cuello despacito<br \/>\nDeja que te diga cosas al o\u00eddo<br \/>\nPara que te acuerdes si no est\u00e1s conmigo<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Despacito<br \/>\nQuiero desnudarte a besos despacito<br \/>\nFirmo en las paredes de tu laberinto<br \/>\nY hacer de tu cuerpo todo un manuscrito (sube, sube, sube)<br \/>\n(Sube, sube)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Quiero ver bailar tu pelo<br \/>\nQuiero ser tu ritmo<br \/>\nQue le ense\u00f1es a mi boca<br \/>\nTus lugares favoritos (favoritos, favoritos baby)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">D\u00e9jame sobrepasar tus zonas de peligro<br \/>\nHasta provocar tus gritos<br \/>\nY que olvides tu apellido (Diridiri, dirididi Daddy)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Si te pido un beso ven d\u00e1melo<br \/>\nYo s\u00e9 que est\u00e1s pens\u00e1ndolo<br \/>\nLlevo tiempo intent\u00e1ndolo<br \/>\nMami, esto es dando y d\u00e1ndolo<br \/>\nSabes que tu coraz\u00f3n conmigo te hace bom, bom<br \/>\nSabes que esa beba est\u00e1 buscando de mi bom, bom<br \/>\nVen prueba de mi boca para ver c\u00f3mo te sabe<br \/>\nQuiero, quiero, quiero ver cu\u00e1nto amor a ti te cabe<br \/>\nYo no tengo prisa, yo me quiero dar el viaje<br \/>\nEmpecemos lento, despu\u00e9s salvaje<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Pasito a pasito, suave suavecito<br \/>\nNos vamos pegando poquito a poquito<br \/>\nCuando t\u00fa me besas con esa destreza<br \/>\nVeo que eres malicia con delicadeza<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Pasito a pasito, suave suavecito<br \/>\nNos vamos pegando, poquito a poquito<br \/>\nY es que esa belleza es un rompecabezas<br \/>\nPero pa montarlo aqu\u00ed tengo la pieza<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Despacito<br \/>\nQuiero respirar tu cuello despacito<br \/>\nDeja que te diga cosas al o\u00eddo<br \/>\nPara que te acuerdes si no est\u00e1s conmigo<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Despacito<br \/>\nQuiero desnudarte a besos despacito<br \/>\nFirmo en las paredes de tu laberinto<br \/>\nY hacer de tu cuerpo todo un manuscrito (sube, sube, sube)<br \/>\n(Sube, sube)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Quiero ver bailar tu pelo<br \/>\nQuiero ser tu ritmo<br \/>\nQue le ense\u00f1es a mi boca<br \/>\nTus lugares favoritos (favoritos, favoritos baby)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">D\u00e9jame sobrepasar tus zonas de peligro<br \/>\nHasta provocar tus gritos<br \/>\nY que olvides tu apellido<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Despacito<br \/>\nVamos a hacerlo en una playa en Puerto Rico<br \/>\nHasta que las olas griten \"\u00a1ay, bendito!\"<br \/>\nPara que mi sello se quede contigo<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Pasito a pasito, suave suavecito<br \/>\nNos vamos pegando, poquito a poquito<br \/>\nQue le ense\u00f1es a mi boca<br \/>\nTus lugares favoritos (favoritos, favoritos baby)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Pasito a pasito, suave suavecito<br \/>\nNos vamos pegando, poquito a poquito<br \/>\nHasta provocar tus gritos<br \/>\nY que olvides tu apellido (DY)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Despacito<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Songwriters: Erika Ender \/ Luis Fonsi \/ Ramon Ayala<\/p>\n<p>[h.t. Grace Wu; thanks to Melvin Lee, Zeyao Wu, Xinchang Li, and Yixue Yang]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This amazing song from Taiwan seems to have been inspired by some Japanese cultural practices, which we will explore later in this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,39,94,208,189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","category-language-and-culture","category-language-and-music","category-puns","category-transcription"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38473"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38516,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38473\/revisions\/38516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}