The publishing of phrase books for the traveller used to be big business, but that now we can just speak into a phone and have it translate our words into a foreign language, the need to thumb through many pages has disappeared. Soon AI may take us even further. Efficient of course, but boring. Disdaining phrasebook help, when my uncle took us to Germany when I was 14, I ordered a sandwich of bread and donkey. I don’t remember what we got, but all considered it quite acceptable. Is such serendipity to be lost from the world?

Atlas Obscura brings us an account of the immortal publication English as She Is Spoke (or O novo guia da conversação em portuguez e inglez). The guide includes helpful phrases like “He has spit in my coat”; “take that boy and whip him to much”; and “these apricots and these peaches make me and to come water in mouth.” Such help would take the Portuguese traveller far in 1883 London.

Mark Twain wrote an introduction to the 1883 edition, assuring us “Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect.” It is assumed that the main author Perdo Carolino wrote the guide by using French as an interim point as he happened to own a Portuguese/French dictionary and a French/English one too. Still, that seems unlikely to be enough to explain the elegance of his translations. Here’s a picture of the opening of the section on Idiotisms and Proverbs:

Hard to know what proverbs some of these are seeking to render — you can click on the image to enlarge it. The author is clearly guilty of intent “to build castles in Espagnish”.

Whether or not Monty Python’s Hungarian phrasebook skit is inspired by English as She is Spoke, it merits inclusion in a discussion of phrasebook publishing.

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