Amish and Native American humor are two that don’t translate well outside of the culture, IMHO, but both have their own knee-slappers and some last for generations. There is a Shawnee joke that goes back to Tecumseh, as a joke, selling some land he didn’t own to someone who was forbidden by the Whites from buying it and then offering to sell it to him a second time years later; it still gets laughs over 200 years after it happened.
Another interesting google: “translating humor” or “translating jokes”.
The people who have managed to make Pratchett or Chesterton work in other languages have my utmost respect. Sometimes it’s plain impossible and they need to go to Translator’s Notes, but there Pratchett has the advantage over Chesterton in that the first one’s work already includes Author’s Footnotes; the TN becomes part of the book’s flow, rather than being outside it.
Two contrasting examples come to mind.
Muriel Barbery’s “Elegance of the Hedgehog” was probably a funny book in French, but I never laughed once. I had the feeling that the translator had no sense of humor at all.
“A Man Called Ove” by Fredrik Backman, translated from Swedish, is one the funniest books I’ve ever read. It carried over perfectly into English.
Wasn’t it in Stranger in a Strange Land where humor, well laughter, was put forth as a defining characteristic of being human: “Man is the animal who laughs” and that "They laugh because it hurts so much "?
Humor clearly is culturally dependent and I think culture is where humor goes beyond “incongruity resolution”, the sudden flip of perception to an surprising new one, but is also based on what a culture is uncomfortable with.
America is hung up on sexuality and thus does lots of sex jokes. It takes cultures with such historically relatively rigid rules of proper behavior to do goofy as well as Monty Python or those absurd Japanese game shows. So on.
I’ve also seen humor development in early childhood as an important marker in many ways.
I wouldn’t say it’s universal, AFAIK, in Japan it would be a complete blunder to make a joke at the expense of someone else, sarcasm is right out too.
In America, you break law. In Soviet Russia, law breaks you.
Probably never garnered big yuks in the USSR back in the day.
Humor could be humor even if it’s not socially acceptable. It sounds like you’re saying that’s the case with sarcasm in Japan. But it’s possible - at least theoretically - for a culture to simply not recognize sarcasm altogether. Meaning that saying outlandish things in a sarcastic tone of voice would not be understood to be mockery, but would be taken as straightforward communication.
Well, if you were in trusted company you could have heard things like the following…
The 1980 olympics in Moscow. Opening ceremony. Brezhnev is reading the official opening speech. The stadium is totally silent. Brezhnev slowly takes out his glasses, puts them on, takes the papers with his speech, and with great power and emotion says:
“O!”
Dramatic pause of about five seconds. Then, he declaims, raising his left hand:
“O!!”
Yet another dramatic pause for effect. Then, plaintively:
“O…”
At that point, an aide hurries to Brezhnev’s side and whispers to him:
“Leonid Ilych!! It’s not necessary to read the rings…!!”
And you do know what the Japanese phrase for a joke that is not funny is? An “American joke.”
Historically the Chinese though were the ones to make fun of in Japan.
As to how we know that there is no human culture without humor - well laughter is a part of normal human function and development. One could no more have a culture without humor than one could a society without food or perhaps more aptly, language.
Babies normally begin to smile by 1 month and begin to smile socially by 2 months. By 9 month they appreciate the developmentally appropriate joke of peekaboo and by two years old they already laugh at what is silly. You’ll observe the telling and laughing at a joke that has the structure of a joke but a nonsensical punchline by 4years as well as potty humor by then and some real jokes by 5. Show me any culture in which this rough developmental progression does not occur.
Hunter-gatherer cultures have all been observed to have humor and to use humor to enforce social norms and it is claimed aggressively as in the “Polish joke” fashion to mark who is out-group and to bond the band together with in-jokes.
Now given that humor is used both to enforce and to bristle against social norms clearly the what is funny will vary within cultures and the role of funny will vary. Jokes call attention to the individual telling the joke and broadcast their wit and status, to some degree even when they are self-effacing. Cultures that discourage calling attention to oneself, that encourage group think and conformity will have different sorts of joke telling than ones that are more individualistic.
This seems a bit circular.
What’s the source for this claim?
A Ojibway, a Shawnee, and a rabbi walk into a bar…
Regards,
Shodan
Not sure what seems circular. Laughter and humor are as common in human culture as is language. We are pretty hardwired to develop each. Pretty straight line.
Sources are books and articles read over many years but an easy thing to find a few citations for you.
Another. (see top of page 18, can’t cut and paste it)
You can’t know that there is no human culture without humor from the notion that “laughter is a part of normal human function and development”, since that’s the premise which requires a source. If there would be a human culture without humor then it would turn out that humor is cultural and not hardwired.
These are interesting and informative. Thank you.
It’s my understanding that there’s a fair amount of evidence for humor in animals, and so it predates humanity.