Inspired by our two favourite assassins, this week’s ATTF topic is languages. Specifically languages and how they’re portrayed in media.

We know that Natasha’s first language is Russian and, in the comics at least, Clint can ‘speak’ sign language. Considering that they’re spies and have a history of travelling the world it’s likely that they also speak other languages.

I’ve seen comics portray other languages by putting an asterisk to a translation, or to a note saying ‘they’re actually speaking in X’. The excellent David Aja was creative the Hawkeye comics in his portrayal of languages – and hearing difficulties – in speech bubbles, but also using sign language, body language, and even symbols for a dog’s-eye view of the world:





What do you think about how languages are shown in the films and comics? What about other media and what about in fanfiction? How have you seen other languages depicted, how do you like to see them depicted, and is that dependent on circumstances? For example, if the protagonist isn’t meant to be able to understand the language/s they’re hearing. How have you depicted other languages?

Feel free to bring other films, tv shows, books, and media into this conversation. For example, in Firefly to show how the American and Asian cultures had merged in the future – and so that the characters could swear creatively – the English speaking cast swore in, and emphasised points in, Mandarin. But then I’m curious, if we’d had an Asian character would they have sworn in English?

And those of you from non-English countries, tell us about translations, dubbing, seeing your own languages as ‘foreign’, all the things. Lets talk about things that are lost in translation. Let’s talk about accents and dialect. Let's talk about swearing and getting creative with curses. Let’s talk about Allspeak and how that even works.

Let’s talk about talking: go!


Things to remember:
1) Always label NSFW (Not Safe For Work) stuff in the title and post under a cut.
2) Fic and artwork needs to have a rating and warnings (or you can say that you’ve chosen not to use warnings).
3) For people with annoying internet connections, say in the title if a comment is graphic/images/gif-heavy and post picspams under a cut.
4) Have a damn good time! (Because if that’s not happening then this post has clearly failed.)