Same with German - they love their puns. I can make up a few right off the top of my head, but the only ones my early-morning-fogged mind can come up with are various plays on schiessen (to shoot) and another very similar word with a similar, but more visceral meaning.
Japanese puns:
A: Fuji-san ni nobotta koto ga aru?
(Have you climbed Mt Fuji?)
B: Iiyamada.
(“Ii yama da” It’s a fantastic mountain.
OR “Iiya, mada”, No, not yet)
The following were taken from http://members.aol.com/japanyuumoa/dajare.html
Seifu na noni, abunai
(The government, though, is dangerous) The pun is on seifu “government” and seifu - “safe”
A: Nihongo de “A fly” shitteru?
(Do you know the Japanese word for “a fly”?)
B: Hai (yes)
A: Iie, hae (hae is the word for “a fly”)
Chinese puns:
Literary puns are termed “shuang guan” and the normal ones are simply known as “xie yin”. Shuangguan are more metaphorical - think along Shakespeare’s “You’ll find me a grave man”. Xieyin can border on crudeness, eg “Wo gen ta shangchuan!” (I boarded the ship with him!) elicits giggles as shangchuan (“to board a ship”) is a close homophone of shangchuang (“to go to bed with”).
Shuangguan examples:
“Dongbian richu xibian yu, dao shi wuqing haiyou qing”
The sun rises in the east, the rain falls in the west,
The path may be dim and gloomy (lack of (“wu”) brightness “qing”) , but there is sunshine ("qing) ahead.
The pun here is between “qing” sunshine and “qing” emotions/love. The last line is supposed to read:
“The path is lonely/merciless, but there is love ahead.”
Puns in poetry/literature are used in replacement of words previously deemed scandalous/controversial eg love, emotions, reference to non-officially sanctioned topics.
Xieyin examples:
(In a toilet) “Lai ye congcong, qu ye chongchong” (You come in a hurry, flush when you leave)
This is a modification of “Lai ye congcong, qu ye congcong” - “how quickly we come and how quickly we depart”, ie we all lead a fleeting existence. However, in this pun the second part, “qu ye chongchong” exhorts the person to flush “chong” when he leaves “qu”.
There are lots and lots of puns in classical Arabic. A very old Arabic pun involves the name of an ancient pre-Arabic town in Iraq, Samarra. One of the ‘Abbasid caliphs was so happy with the place, he called it sarra man ra’âh, ‘he rejoices who sees it’.
A lot of Arabic wordplay comes from the accidental similarity of words derived from two different roots. In Arabic, each word is derived from a root of three consonants. Different words from the same root are considered to be related in meaning.
So insân (human being) is nisyân (forgetful). It looks as though they’re from the same root, although they’re not.
A phrase I once came across in an Arabic books was al-‘ayn lâ tará ‘aynahâ (The ‘ayn does not see its ‘ayn.) This word means ‘eye’ but also means ‘self’. So it’s saying ‘The eye does not see itself’. But a clueless translator didn’t get the pun and translated it as “The eye does not see its eye,” which makes no sense. Arabic puns are often used by Sufis to get you to look at things from another perspective, making connections between unrelated words to open up new neural pathways in the brain.
jovan said:
(bolding mine).
I would like to hear some Italian puns. I have asked Italian colleagues for examples, and so far only received only one example in a regional (and to me incomprehensible) dialect.
There do exist words thich are written identically, but they are almost always pronounced with a differing vowel accent. For example, “Ancora” can mean “Again” or “Anchor”, but it is pronounced in two distinct ways. I supose there could be written puns…
The only example I can think of is the word “Sei”, which can mean “Six” or “You are”, but I have yet to hear a successful pun using this word.
There is also the case of double consonants being the only difference between two words, but Italians still insist that there is a difference in the pronunciation, e.g., “Cappello” (hat) and “Capello” (hair). I, personally, can distinguish between a single and double “L” (you prolong the sound slightly), or “N” (eventually: see below), but have trouble with a single or double “P”. I sent a postcard last year whilst on holiday to a niece of mine, wishing to say that the excessive sunlight had caused me to finally buy my first hat (I am balding), and instead wrote that I had bought my first hair (singular). The shame. When confronted later, I tried to claim subtle humour and fiendish wit, but was not believed. I also rendered myself immortal by once (only once!) confusing “Scoraggiare” (to discourage) with “Scoreggiare” (to fart), in a context where it had meaning, but that is a memory I dare not revive. My wife remembers it, however. Every time. She still cannot finish recounting the story without sputtering in what I consider a most un-ladylike way, and causing similar disruptive social upheavals among her listeners. For her own dignity and reputation, I think she should forget about it. I have ever since avoided both verbs scrupulously. In my early years, I pronounced the word “Anno” (year) as tough it were “Ano” (anus). I will leave it to each person’s imagination and conscience to picture the possible confusion I may have created. Luckily, a colleage took me aside to explain my perfectly understandable and trivial error, although he too, at the time, seemed to be suffering from the same distressful speech impediment that my wife exhibits when she recounts the “Scoreggiare” episode. It being difficult to avoid using the word “year”, I have learned to pronounce it as if it had at least five “N”s, as in “Quest’annnnno” (This yeeeear”). One can only strive to adapt.
However, all is not lost. There is a recent TV advert for coffee, where they do perpetrate a successful pun, based on the words “La pianta” (“the plant”, or “stop it, cut it out”). I was both surprised and delighted upon hearing it. I actually exclaimed “A pun! A pun!”, and behaved irrationally for a short period.
So, jovan, please, give me more examples, so I can make my co-workers suffer the horrors of “the lowest form of wit”.
I will be honest, the last time I studied Italian seriously was almost 16 years ago and I’m in my mid twenties. I might have been talking through my hat, maybe. The only Italian pun I know is a litterary expression that goes “traduttore, traditore!” It’s a play on words that means “translator, traitor!” i.e. any translation betrays the original text to some extant.
“One” isn’t exactly “some”, I’ll concede.
Googling “gioco di parole” yields 8020 results, however on inspection most of those deal mith crosswords and anagrams and the like. Word play for sure, but not necessarily pun.
It’s 2:30 am but I am determined to find at least one more…
Ok… it is now 2:50, I’ve googled in three languages, and I have probably read dozens of puns without knowing it. The best I can offer is:
Sono Pazzi Questi Romani, which only makes sense if you’re familiar with Asterix.
There’s alsothis puny url.
That’s hardly the only similar remark I found though, and it thus appears that I was right after all, maybe.
I will go sleep now…
So, Meliadus, quanti ani ha Lei?
Quoth pldennison:
That’s not a pun, it just looks that way because it’s not fully translated. The man Jesus was addressing there was named Simon; Peter is a nickname derived from the word “petra”. So a fuller translation might be something like “You are Rocky, and on this rock I build my church.”.
There are a good many puns in the Bible, though. In general, whenever you see something like “And she named her son ____, because he would be _____”, it’s usually a pun. The name has one literal meaning, but the “because” is generally something which sounds similar in Hebrew, but comes from a different root and has a different meaning.
There are even puns in Ameslan (American Sign Language, used by the deaf).
Here’s one. Read my hands:
.
.
.
.
.
.
{groan}
Good one, eh?
V.Mayakovsky Punned Trotsky once:
1922 Trotsky was then People’s Commissar of War.
Trotsky once summoned Mayakovsky into his office. He was writing a book titled “literature and revolution” Mayakovsky described his colleagues, then Trotsky repeated his account after him, in his own words. “what do you think? how was that for a first try?” Mayakovsky answered with his “historic” pun.
“The first pancake falls like a peoples commissar.”(pervy blin lyog narkomom), a play on the saying “The first pancake falls like a lump,”(pervy blin lyog komom)
Jomo Mojo:
Exactly. Something like that almost certainly happened. Try “Quest’ano è stato veramente divertente”. Or “Abbiamo diviso i risultati secondo i loro ani”.
jovan: thank you for searching. I should have thought of doing so myself. In your link, the joke:
- is a real, genuine, bona fide Italian pun. I take my hair off to you - I mean my hat. You have made an old man very happy.
Neulich wurde ein Anschlag auf mein Handy verübt. Es war total tot - nichts ging mehr!
Ich bin der Meinung, es ist der Bruder von Bin Laden.
Es war ein Bekennerbrief kurz vor dem Attentat dabei… auf dem Display stand: “Akku Laden”.
(Don’t know if that really counts - though it’s certainly corny enough.)
Here’s one a Mexican perpetrated on me once: we were saying our goodbyes, and I called out, ¡Llámame! (Please call me!)
He said, ¡Felicitaciones! (congratulations). The joke was to interpret what I’d said as the homophone “Ya mamé” (I’ve already given a blowjob.)
Needless to say, I got a lot of mileage out of this when I was in Spain.