I saw this somewhere else and put Sante on my list. (Not the list of people to kill, the good list).

The psychologist George Herbert Mead learned to speak French from his New England neighborhood and learned to read French from comix. I have a friend who learned a fair amount of Italian from CD liner notes. "Relevance" has its points.

French homonymy also gives you "rime riche" which is now illegal. I've seen Rutebeuf poems (ca. 1200 AD??) in which the same word or sound appeared six times in three lines.

Rimbaud identified with the Gauls' ineptness at fighting, but refrained from painting himself blue. Seemingly (help anyone?) French would identify with Gauls as an alternative to being either Franks or Romans.

There was a bad-taste Mad Magazine / National Lampoon kind of thing called Croc out of Montreal which had that comic-book feeling. Alas, they bankrupted.

Tintin and Asterix I had growing up in English and French (comparing the two was my introduction to the fact that you might miss something in translation). In Cannes I discovered Le Genie des Alpages: clever wordplay and ideas involving very smart sheep. Blog entry here contains links.

I've been thinking of using French-language editions of Tintin and Asterix as two among several tools to teach myself to read French. Any thoughts on their efficacy?

Also, Sante's book Low Life is quite an entertaining read. I especially like the new Afterword in which he discusses the many changes in Manhattan's Lower East Side since the 1970s.

"French-speaking children are schooled in puns from the start. Of course, this could be said of speakers of English and maybe every other language as well"

I don't know, I've read that speakers of Thai don't especially go in for puns, despite the fact that homophony abounds. The author (non-thai) theorized that it's just too easy). I don't know enough Thai to judge.

Can anyone say something authoritative on the (non-)existence of punning behavior in Chinese?

Lots and lots of puns in Chinese. They're woven into daily life and have religious functions at times. For example, certain animals are lucky or unlucky because their names pun with good or bad words (the "bat" is "lucky" because both are "fu".) At weddings all kinds of lucky things are brought forth, and unlucky things are shunned.

Arthur Smith, an XIXc missionary, lived in a Chinese village and collected that kind of thing. His stuff goes in and out of print -- highly recommended.

Puns and word-games also can play a major role in Chinese poetry. Puns are often taken seriously rather than humorously, as if they represent a deep hidden meaning.

ARTHUR H.SMITH, Proverbs and common sayings from the Chinese

Village Life in China A Study in Sociology By: Smith, Arthur H

CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS / Arthur H. Smith

I've been thinking of using French-language editions of Tintin and Asterix as two among several tools to teach myself to read French. Any thoughts on their efficacy?

I don't know how good your French is, but Gaston La Gaffe are in a bit more bite size form. Never liked Tintin, but did like Lucky Luke.

On the subject of comics, the late lamented Mangajin was quite fun for Japanese

As a frequent visitor here, I'm flattered to be the subject of a post! I would definitely recommend Lucky Luke to English-speakers, especially Americans: Rene Goscinny, the writer, apprenticed at Mad, and the humor is interestingly Franco-American, complete with translingual puns.

And by the way, my last name is pronounced SAHNT--it's not French but Walloon, originally "Zande," the Walloon for "Alexander."

Thank you, both for visiting and for correcting the pronunciation (and, needless to say, for the etymology, which you doubtless knew I was wondering about). I thought it was probably one syllable, with no reason but my highly developed Sprachgefühl, but when I asked a cashier at Coliseum Books, where you had just done a reading (which I didn't know about or I would definitely have been there), she said confidently that it was sahn-TAY. I should have trusted my Sprachgefühl, dammit!

I don't know how good your French is

My French is beginner level. One reason I'd like to read Tintin in French is because I read English-language translations in Children's Digest magazine, when I was a kid in the 1970s. I loved Tintin then, and so I thought perhaps comics like Tintin and Asterix would be a good learning aid.

[hooray for Lucky Luke!]

I knew as soon as I saw the title what this entry would be about, heh.

Dietsch, I credit Astérix for a good part of whatever fluency in French I once had.

I'd love to find Fred's Philémon series again.

Hebrew puns translated into other langauges

I am gathering a collection of Hebrew expressions that appear in other
languages as idioms or nonsense. Some examples are provided below, using
@ = aleph, X = het, and 3 = aiyin. I hope the members of the list can
provide additional examples.

Type 1: The translation of a Hebrew pun on a Hebrew phrase

Ex. 1:
Clear text: B'QoSHi = barely, hardly, scarcely
Heb. pun: B'3oR SHiNai (Job 19:20)
English: "by the skin of my teeth"

Ex. 2:
Clear text: YaRa:aX GaVNooNi = gibbous moon
Heb. pun: YaRoK G'ViNaH
English: The moon is made of "green cheese".

Ex. 3:
Clear text: PeLeTZ + K'Foo = shiver, tremble + frozen (compare English palsy)
Heb. pun: P'LiZ + KoF
English: brass monkey (weather)
(Treating P as B in Arabic, P'LiZ KoF => balls (k)off ..., hence
"cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey")

Ex. 4:
Clear text: YeReKH yod-resh-khaf = buttock, haunch, thigh
Heb. pun: YaRa:aX yod-resh-het = moon
English: to moon = to expose one's buttocks as a prank or gesture of disrespect.

Type 2: The translation of a Hebrew pun on a phrase in another language

Ex. 5
Latin: sopor sond = sleep soundly/deeply
Heb. pun: S'PoR TZo@N = count sheep (imperative)
English: Count sheep (to go to sleep)

Ex. 6
Latin: Saccharomyces cervisae = Brewer's yeast (an ancient hangover remedy)
Heb. pun: Sa3aR MiNSHaKH KeLeV = hair bite dog (compare Gk Cerberus,
the 3-headed dog guarding the entrance to Hades)
English: Take "hair of the dog that bit you" (as a hangover remedy)

There are far more cases where a Hebrew phrase is transliterated (not
translated) into an [English] idiom. I will post some of these at a
later date. In the meantime, I hope to receive more translation examples
from list members.

Best regards,

Israel "izzy" Cohen
israel_and_yvettec@012.net.il
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps

I read an interview with Franquin (creator of Spirou and friend of Peyo – creator of les schtroumpfs).

Anyway, he said that the use of the word "schtroumpf" began when Peyo had just begun drawing them, and was engulfed by the universe and adventures of the smurfs. In a restaurant, he then said "pass me the smurf", when he intended something else, the salt I think.

Then he used it in his cartoons as well :)