Homophonic translation renders a text in one language into a near-homophonic text in another language, usually with no attempt to preserve the original meaning of the text. For example, the English "sat on a wall" is rendered as French "French: s'étonne aux Halles" in French pronounced as /setɔn o al/ (literally "gets surprised at the Paris Market"). More generally, homophonic transformation renders a text into a near-homophonic text in the same or another language: e.g., "recognize speech" could become "wreck a nice beach".[1]
Homophonic translation is generally used humorously, as bilingual punning (macaronic language). This requires the listener or reader to understand both the surface, nonsensical translated text, as well as the source text—the surface text then sounds like source text spoken in a foreign accent.
Homophonic translation may be used to render proper nouns in a foreign language. If an attempt is made to match meaning as well as sound, it is phono-semantic matching.
Frayer Jerker (1956) is a homophonic translation of the French Frère Jacques.[2] Other examples of homophonic translation include some works by Oulipo (1960–), Frédéric Dard, Luis van Rooten's English-French (1967) (Mother Goose's Rhymes), Louis Zukofsky's Latin-English Catullus Fragmenta (1969), Ormonde de Kay's English-French N'Heures Souris Rames (1980) (Nursery Rhymes), John Hulme's German-English Morder Guss Reims: The Gustav Leberwurst Manuscript (Mother Goose's Rhymes),[3] and David Melnick's Ancient Greek-English Men in Aida (1983) (Homer's Iliad).
An example of homophonic transformation in the same language is Howard L. Chace's "Ladle Rat Rotten Hut", written in "Anguish Languish" (English Language) and published in book form in 1956.
A British schoolboy example of Dog Latin:[4]
Other names proposed for this genre include "allographic translation",[5] "transphonation", or (in French) "traducson",[6] but none of these is widely used.
Here is van Rooten's version of Humpty Dumpty:[7]
The individual words are all correct French. (*fallent is an obsolete form of the verb falloir; Reguennes is an invented proper name), and some passages follow standard syntax and are interpretable (though nonsensical), but the result is in fact not meaningful French.
The Italian rabbi Leon of Modena composed at age 13[8] an octave by the name of "Kinah Sh'mor", meaningful in both Hebrew and Renaissance Judeo-Italian, as an elegy for his teacher Moses della Rocca.[9] The first four verses are below.
| Hebrew text | Hebrew transliteration | Translation | Judeo-Italian | Roman-type Italian | Translation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kinah sh'mor. Oy, meh k'pas otzer bo, | Mark this lament! Ah, but the treasure of him has passed, | Chi nasce muor, Oime, che pass'acerbo! | Whoever is born, dies. Ay, me! A bitter thing has come to pass | |||
| Kol tov eilom. Kosi or din el tzilo. | All his divine good! The shadow of God's judgment falls on my cup of light. | Colto vien l'huom, cosi ordin'il Cielo. | A man has been plucked, such is the decree of Heaven. | |||
| Moshe mori, Moshe, yakar, dever bo. | Moses my teacher, Moses, how precious all was in him, | Mose morì, Mose gia car de verbo, | Moses has died, Moses, so precious of speech, | |||
| Sam tushiyah on. Yom Kippur hu zeh lo. | How much resourcefulness and strength were there! This is his Day of Atonement. | Santo sia ogn'huom, con puro zelo! | Sainted be he of all men, pure was his zeal! |
Ghil'ad Zuckermann's "Italo-Hebraic Homophonous Poem"[10] is meaningful in both Italian and Hebrew, "although it has a surreal, evocative flavour, and modernist style".[11]
Here is another example of a sentence which has two completely different meanings if read in Latin or in Italian:
An accidental homophonic transformation is known as a mondegreen. The term has also been applied to intentional homophonic translations of song lyrics, often combined with music videos, which have gained popularity on the internet. In Japan, homophonic transformation for humor is known as soramimi.