A bilingual pun is a

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...

created by a word or phrase in one language sounding similar to a different word or phrase in another language. The result of a bilingual pun is often a joke that makes sense in more than one language. A bilingual pun can be made with a word from another language that has the same meaning, or an opposite meaning.

Description

A bilingual pun involves a word from one language which has the same or similar meaning in another language's word. The word is often homophonic whether on purpose or by accident. Another feature of the bilingual pun is that the person does not need to have the ability to speak both languages in order to understand the pun. The bilingual pun can also demonstrate common ground with a person who speaks another language.

Examples

Biblical

There are what appear to be Biblical bilingual puns. In Exodus 10:10

Moses Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu ( Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pr ...

is warned by the Egyptian Pharaoh that evil awaits him. In

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

the word "Ra" means evil, but in Egyptian " Ra" is the sun god. So when Moses was warned the word "ra" can mean the sun god stands in the way, or evil stands in the way.

Literature

Unintentional bilingual puns occur in translations of one of

Shakespeare's plays Shakespeare's plays are a canon of approximately 39 dramatic works written by English poet, playwright, and actor William Shakespeare. The exact number of plays—as well as their classifications as tragedy, history, comedy, or otherwise—is a ...

Henry V Henry V may refer to: People * Henry V, Duke of Bavaria (died 1026) * Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (1081/86–1125) * Henry V, Duke of Carinthia (died 1161) * Henry V, Count Palatine of the Rhine (c. 1173–1227) * Henry V, Count of Luxembourg (121 ...

. The line spoken by Katherine, "I cannot speak your England" becomes political in French.

References

Bibliography

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External links

7 Puns That Make Sense in More Than One Language
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bilingual pun

Category Category, plural categories, may refer to: Philosophy and general uses *Categorization, categories in cognitive science, information science and generally * Category of being * ''Categories'' (Aristotle) * Category (Kant) * Categories (Peirce) ...

Puns Macaronic language Homophonic translation Sociolinguistics Semantics Pidgins and creoles Linguistic morphology Word coinage Linguistic typology Linguistic purism