language change through dubbing
I apologize for back-to-back, linguistic posts. But while the last one was boring, this one's interesting.
On the Laguage Log, Bill Poser discuss an interesting way English movies are affecting language change in Turkish. Now you might expect the usual borrowing, which is when language A adopts a word from language B directly into language A. An example is American English adopting Spanish siesta. This process is very, very common.
What's interesting about Poser's discussion of Turkish is that there's no infiltration of English words. It seems that when the Turkish theaters dub the American movies into Turkish, they try to choose Turkish phrases whose pronunciation matches the lip movements of the English-speaking actors on the screen. In Turkish, the typical greeting used to be merhaba. But it's quickly being replaced with selâm. In Turkish-dubbed movies, selâm matches up better with English hello than merhaba.
If this is truly the reason for why selâm is replacing merhaba, then that's amazing. But there must be more to the story. How often do you think hello appears in dialogue, rather than hey, hi, how's it goin, etc.? I'm wondering if selâm, being used often in the movies, is gaining a "coolness" or "hipness" air in the language. And maybe it's the greeting of choice in less-formal situations.
Regardless of what's causing selâm to spread through Turkish, it's genus as a solution for dubbing hello is pretty interesting.
On the Laguage Log, Bill Poser discuss an interesting way English movies are affecting language change in Turkish. Now you might expect the usual borrowing, which is when language A adopts a word from language B directly into language A. An example is American English adopting Spanish siesta. This process is very, very common.
What's interesting about Poser's discussion of Turkish is that there's no infiltration of English words. It seems that when the Turkish theaters dub the American movies into Turkish, they try to choose Turkish phrases whose pronunciation matches the lip movements of the English-speaking actors on the screen. In Turkish, the typical greeting used to be merhaba. But it's quickly being replaced with selâm. In Turkish-dubbed movies, selâm matches up better with English hello than merhaba.
If this is truly the reason for why selâm is replacing merhaba, then that's amazing. But there must be more to the story. How often do you think hello appears in dialogue, rather than hey, hi, how's it goin, etc.? I'm wondering if selâm, being used often in the movies, is gaining a "coolness" or "hipness" air in the language. And maybe it's the greeting of choice in less-formal situations.
Regardless of what's causing selâm to spread through Turkish, it's genus as a solution for dubbing hello is pretty interesting.