Saturday, May 23

Bleeding zits and linguistics

Lets start off with an MSN conversation I was having with a good friend during the wee hours of the morning. It is pretty much how my day started.
Sure, it sounds disgusting, but it was absolutely hilarious for the both of us. It made me wonder how much of an influence tone has on language. When I think 'tonal language' I think of Chinese. Incorrect tones could change the entire meaning of the sentence. For example: 
  • 可口可乐 (kěkǒukělè) - Coca Cola
  • 克扣可叻 (Kèkòu kě lè) - Deductions can be smart
I cannot vouch for the translation for the second one, even if it was done by the almighty Google, but it gets to the point. Of course the Chinese have different tones for different characters but if you slip up a couple of tones, correct interpretation can be difficult. Also, it's not like chinese characters come out of your mouth when you attempt to speak chinese, just like what happens in comics, just for the sake of being understood properly.
Then again, written language can also be questionable. I'll leave you with this one. :)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, I would like some chicken rude and unreasonable please.

Randolf said...

Would you like a can of Deductions can be smart? ;)

Unknown said...

hahaha popping pussy zits (maayke)

Norman said...

I sure wish I could pop some pussy zits right now...

Randolf said...

You're all so mean :(

Unknown said...

<3