Figure 1: Multilingual sign in Abu Dhabi with power disparities indicated through order and size of text

In the critically acclaimed Barbie movie, released in cinemas in mid-2023, Barbie and Ken depart from their fictional utopia of Barbie Land for the ‘real world’ of California, USA. When they arrive, they are very much outsiders observing their environment with new eyes.

It does not take long for a strong message to sink in: their new urban landscape reflects power dynamics between groups of people.

White men dominate, from appearing on banknotes, being carved into mountains, and holding the lion’s share of high-powered and lucrative positions. Ken thus believes it will be easy for him to find a job as he fits the profile of ‘the powerful’ based on race and gender alone. Barbie, on the other hand, finds her identity as a strong, independent, and ambitious woman suddenly out of sync with her surroundings and social interactions. Their reflexive positioning, or the way they view their own identities, shifts according to interactive positioning, or the way they are viewed by others, which in turn is influenced by societal norms and the social construction of reality.

Gender hierarchies parallel linguistic hierarchies

Upon leaving my local independent cinema in the Cotswold town of Chipping Norton on a rainy July day, I contemplated, in particular, one of the many strong messages embedded in the movie. This was the direct interconnectedness of semiotic landscapes, symbolic power, and identities. While the movie focused on challenging the dominance of the patriarchy in society, as a sociolinguist, the parallels with language hierarchies leapt out, particularly in relation to the omnipresence of English, or linguistic imperialism, in many global contexts.

Figure 2: Inclusion of Musqueam on signage at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

In a similar way to Barbie and Ken’s experience of gendered power dynamics being all-encompassing, in multilingual settings, the languages we see in public places not only impact language ideologies and linguistic hierarchies but also affect levels of belonging in a space. In linguistically diverse cities across the globe such as Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) or Vancouver, Canada, official language(s) and English as a global language tend to dominate. While there may be attempts to ‘welcome’ speakers of other languages, such attempts often fall short of true inclusion. For example, greetings in as many languages as will fit onto a sign can often be seen outside tourist attractions and money exchange stores. However, meaningful and balanced multilingualism on signage in public spaces is less common.

English on top

While select second or third languages are strategically included in ‘sticky places’ or spaces which evoke feelings of cultural belonging such as ethnic grocery stores, cafes and restaurants, or where linguistic minorities gather, such multilingual signage is often skewed in favour of dominant languages such as English.

Linguistic hierarchies, in this sense, not only relate to lack of second or third languages but also the order of languages, size, and amount of text. For example, the inclusion of bilingual Indigenous language / English books in Canadian stores is a positive move toward representation and decolonization but at present these books represent a tiny portion of stock sold in stores and they are usually displayed as a special feature.

Figure 3: Dominance of English on signage at an EMI university in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

In Abu Dhabi, the inclusion of three languages for a social distancing sign related to the COVID pandemic also sends a message about linguistic hierarchies by placing English at the top, Arabic second, and Filipino (in smaller print) at the bottom (Figure 1). Here power disparities which relate to language and social position (many nannies in the UAE are from the Philippines, whereas the English and Arabic text is directed at parents) can be seen in the linguistic landscape in terms of ordering and size of text.

Language hierarchies in education-scapes

Particularly in English-medium education in multilingual university settings, which are on the rise globally, English-only or English-dominated signage and language objects tend to overshadow not only instruction but also education-scapes, or the linguistic and semiotic landscapes of educational settings. To take Canadian universities as an example, efforts to include Indigenous languages in education-scapes have been made from the east coast to the west coast, in Cape Breton and Vancouver (Figure 2).

Such initiatives are important in terms of decolonizing education-scapes. However, the representation of languages on many Canadian campuses, which host linguistically diverse student populations, is heavily weighted in favour of monolingual English practices. In the Arab Gulf cities of Abu Dhabi, UAE and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, English-medium universities, bilingual (English/ Arabic) signage shares space with many monolingual (English only) signs, sending out a message about the symbolic power of English in these settings (Figure 3). Even when the target readers’ first language is Arabic, as in the case of signs about Islamic dress codes (Figure 3), the chosen language for the text is still English.

Looking at multilingual signage with new eyes

If we imagine that ‘new eyes’ were viewing these global multilingual cities, what message would be received? Similar to Barbie and Ken’s perception of patriarchal dominance and power in California, English-dominated landscapes send out a message about which languages, and speakers, are valued or devalued in a space. In this sense, issues of access, inclusion and belonging, not only relate to gender and race, but also language use and linguistic identities. As Nicholas (2023) states, a main take away from the Barbie movie is that ‘hierarchy and rigid gender benefits nobody’. Through a language lens, greater thought and planning needs to be given to ensuring neither metaphorical ‘Barbies’ nor ‘Kens’ feel excluded, under-represented, or devalued in the real world’s linguistic and semiotic landscapes.

***

Figure 1: The Year of Tolerance Pillars

Jogging along the Abu Dhabi coastline at sunrise, I see small groups of two or three people wearing masks. They are expatriates walking dogs, Emiratis in national dress strolling, fellow joggers escaping lockdown inactivity, and transnational workers clearing fallen date palm leaves from the path. Cautiously wary as I pass each group, I hear snippets of multiple languages being spoken. This is a typically diverse Abu Dhabi scene in highly atypical times.

While Arabic is the official language of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and English is the de facto lingua franca, such labels ‘hide more than they reveal’. Rather, multilingualism and translingual practice is the norm due to its highly diverse population of approximately 200 nationalities, speaking over 100 languages as well as various dialects within diglossic languages such as Arabic. However, power attributed to these languages is far from even. Arabic and English are the most visible in society as reflected in their side-by-side presence on public signage, in education, official channels, and technology. Such a situation results in those proficient in English and Arabic having more access to information than those without. While communication barriers are important to challenge in general, in emergency situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of linguistic inclusion is amplified.

Superdiversity and the year of tolerance in the UAE

In multilingual contexts globally, increasing attention has been given to social justice via the prevalence of the words ‘inclusion’ and ‘tolerance’. Inclusion can be defined as ‘ensuring access for all’ across many sectors. Several inclusion-based government-led initiatives have occurred in the UAE recently. One prominent initiative was the naming of 2019 as the ‘Year of Tolerance’, where all languages, backgrounds, ethnicities and abilities were to be valued. Figure 1 shows the ‘Year of Tolerance Pillars’ prominently displayed on a shopping mall billboard.

Figure 2: Bilingual COVID-19 safety sign

The seven pillars advocate tolerance in the areas of education, community, workplace, culture, legislation, and media as well as establishing the UAE as a model of tolerance. Here, the message of inclusivity as an ethical and moral value is loud and clear. However, even with carefully implemented awareness campaigns on diversity and inclusion, an unprecedented crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic can disrupt such efforts, and rather shine a spotlight on pre-existing societal and linguistic inequities. In addition, a crisis leads to priorities shifting from ideal values to emergency messaging, where instinctual and on-the-spot decisions are made with the resources available. This is often the case with linguistic choices in public spaces where English monolingualism seems to be the preferred or default choice in a moment of crisis.

Linguistic inequalities in a crisis context

In the UAE, top-down government communication relating to the COVID-19 pandemic is suitably multilingual and inclusive. Guidelines and announcements appear in Arabic, English, Hindi, Tagalog, French, and many more languages. Neighboring Gulf states such as Qatar and countries further afield such as China have also ensured that official communication is linguistically diverse. However, it is often the bottom-up ad hoc messages in public spaces which are most visible. This is especially the case for the UAE’s large migrant worker population who may not have access to mobile devices like laptops and smartphones.

Linguistic landscaping, or the analysis of language on signage in public spaces, can tell us a lot about how languages are used and about the power certain languages have over others. ‘Every sign tells a story about who produced it, and about who is selected to consume it’, as Blommaert (2018) points out. Public signage tracks local practices as well as contributing to the COVID-19 era’s zeitgeist. In this sense, locally-produced impromptu thrown-together messages are indeed authentic ‘signs of the time’. Such signs act as sociolinguistic evidence of power dynamics existing between languages and their speakers.

In the UAE, while municipality-issued COVID-19-related messages appear in the country’s two dominant languages, Arabic and English (Figure 2), in many cases make-shift or hand-written signs appear in English only. This is similar to other English-dominant multicultural and multilingual contexts such as London and Sydney.

Figure 3: Bilingual working hours sign and monolingual COVID-19 sign

It is easy to see a contrast between permanent signs with English and Arabic side-by-side, such as a working-hours sign in a pharmacy window (Figure 3), and an impromptu COVID-19 sign which appears only in English. In Figure 3, the latter is typed in large capital letters which fill the page, without the use of other languages, perhaps due to the urgency needed in communicating quickly. The pharmacy owner or clerk who created the sign most probably did so with a sense of emergency where lack of time and resources did not allow for consideration of the society’s linguistically-diverse population.

A further example of a make-shift monolingual COVID-19 sign can be seen in Figure 4. Here, lifeguards at an Abu Dhabi beachside community have written a message in the sand warning residents to ‘stay home, stay safe’. The manager who instructed the sign to be made on a scorching mid-March afternoon, decided to use English only. Was this perhaps due to limited space on the beach? Was it deemed impractical to write the message in several languages considering the size of the letters? Whatever the reasoning, the space which could have been used for another version of the message (e.g. Arabic), was instead given to a set of images including a house, heart and the ‘sun cross’ symbol (circle with cross inside) meaning eternity or the spiritual whole.

While the use of ‘English only’ may be appropriate in compounds renowned for ‘Jumeirah Janes’ (pampered British housewives living in English-speaking bubbles), since 2008 such monolingual communities have become less common. The beach community featured in Figure 4, for example, is linguistically diverse with Australians living next to Koreans, and Emiratis neighboring Swedes, as well as many dual nationality families, including my own (UK/Canada). Recently, nationalities which had not previously been drawn to the UAE are arriving for work opportunities. Accompanying family members sometimes have only basic English. For example, the number of Koreans living in the UAE has grown to 13,000 residents in what is known as the ‘Korean wave’. With most expatriate households being double-income, live-in nannies, who are usually from the Philippines, are also part of such communities. Despite the multilingual composition of residents, English is often the sole language used for communication in emergency contexts (Figures 3 and 4).

Inclusivity in crisis communication

Although the beach community shown in Figure 4 is home to mainly mid to high-income professionals, it is also the workplace of hundreds of laborers who are now called ‘essential workers’. Arriving on buses from the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, they spend their days working on the upkeep of existing buildings or on constructing new residential towers whose owners have deadlines to meet in order not to lose certain incentives. Figure 5 shows essential workers cleaning apartment windows while wearing masks but not perhaps social distancing, as is a government mandate. They do not have the ‘luxury’ of self-isolating, as many residents do, and it is clear that the message on the beach (Figure 4) was not intended for their eyes.

Figure 4: Covid-19 warning sign written in the sand (Photographer: Genevieve Leclerc)

Nevertheless, as laborers spend their days at their worksite, the make-shift monolingual signs in shops, lifts and  other public spaces represent their main way of accessing safety warnings. Monolingual communication in contexts of disasters or crisis has been named ‘disaster linguicism’, where linguistic minorities (not necessarily in number, but in power or prestige) are particularly vulnerable due to language-based discrimination at multiple levels.

Concerns over the lack of access laborers may have to COVID-19 warnings have been voiced on community Facebook pages as well as in national newspapers. Such concerns have led some residents to try and bridge the communication gap. For example, Indian expatriate teenager, Suchetha Satish, composed COVID-awareness songs in 21 Indian languages including Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, and Assamese. The songs urge people to social distance and wash hands. Such efforts are perhaps aimed at offsetting the prominence of monolingual (English) or bilingual (Arabic/ English) signs in public spaces. However, the potential success of such initiatives is debatable, due to many laborers having limited access to certain mediums. Besides, even with access to such songs, social distancing is not often an option in essential worker contexts, as seen in Figure 5.

Linguistic landscaping: An eye-opener for future action

Figure 5: Essential workers wearing masks during COVID-19 times

For those without access to official multilingual COVID-19 warnings, gaining accurate information about the crisis through a minority language can be a challenge. This highlights linguistic inequality in relation to crisis communication, as well as putting into sharper focus class divides. In top-down initiatives promoting tolerance, there is a danger of glossing over hidden exclusions in favour of celebrating ‘linguistically flexible neoliberal urbanites’. As most sociolinguistic research in the UAE focuses on the language choices and experiences of Emiratis, transnational linguistic experiences are under-researched, especially those from less privileged groups. In this exceptional time when the slogan ‘We are all in it together’ or ‘#TGether’ (as seen in Figure 2) is advocated, it is important to draw attention to the incongruities between slogans of inclusion and the reality on the ground. As Jones (2020) states, ‘Coronavirus is not some grand leveler: it is an amplifier of existing inequalities, injustices and insecurities’ or as Hurley (2020) puts it, ‘Coronavirus exacerbates the fault lines’. Although this is a time of reflection on what a new normal may look like, ‘often these seemingly revolutionarily happenings ultimately result in retrenchment of a status quo defined by durable inequalities’.

The Year of Tolerance supports including all, even those who speak languages other than English and Arabic. However, the pragmatic choices made at the height of the COVID-19 crisis show English is often the default choice. By excluding some, there are significant ramifications for the spread of the virus. Concerned looks on the faces of the diverse groups described in the opening coastline scene of this blog show us this is an issue affecting society as a whole. Thus, the need to ‘include the reality of linguistic diversity into our normal procedures and processes, including disaster preparation’ is pressing. Going forward, a critical look at the signage and warning messages in our landscapes can be eye-opening, with the goal of substantiating the priority of tolerance and inclusion.

Language challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic

Visit here for our full coverage of language aspects of the COVID-19 crisis.

London Dairy ad on a building in Abu Dhabi, UAE

Igloo ad on truck in Abu Dhabi, UAE

به تازگى به يك پايان نامه ی کارشناسی ارشدِ نوشته شده در دانشگاهِ آفريقاى جنوبى در سال ٢٠٠٦ که درباره ی تبليغاتِ مربوط به فست فود در کشور عربستان تحقیق کرده بود برخوردم. نويسنده، ال آقا، به اين مهم رسيده بود كه:

” ٩٧% پاسخ دهنده ها عقيده داشتند كه ترجمه ها در زبان عربى غير قابل فهم هستند. ٣درصد باقيمانده گفتند كه گاهى ترجمه ها را مي فهمند” (ص. ٩٢.)

حتی اگر اندازه ی مجموعه ی تحقیق نسبتا كوچك است، نتايجِ شگفت آوری در آن وجود دارد: در حقیقت نویسنده اظهار می دارد كه تمام جميتى كه هدفِ يك پيام تبليغاتى هستند آن پیام را متوجه نمي شوند. جای تعجب نيست كه عرب زبانان اغلب از اينكه زبانِ عربى با انگليسى “آلوده” (اصطلاحی که نویسنده انتخاب می کند، ص. ٨٢) شده است ناراحتند.  ال آقا به اين  نکته اشاره مي كند كه روش مورد استفاده برای ترجمه در مجموعه ی تبليغاتی او نویسه گردانی است و نه ترجمه. نویسه گردانی در جای ديگرى در جهان عرب هم يافت مي شود. اين چهار مثال را در نظر بگیرید. من دو عكس اول را در ابوظبى گرفتم. عكس سوم در قاهره گرفته شده و توسط گولف نیوز منتشر شده.  عكس چهارم را هم، با نهايت تعجب، در مونيخ گرفتم.    

وجه اشتراك اين نشانه ها این است كه دو زبانی به نظر مي رسند حال آنكه در واقع تک زبانی در دو ساختار نوشتاری متفاوت هستند.

لاندن دِیری درساختار نوشتاری عربی و لاتين همان لاندن دِیری نوشته می شود. اگلوو نيز درساختار نوشتاري اين زبان ها همان  اگلوو است. مکدونالدز و سمارت نيز دراين زبان ها همان مکدونالدز و سمارت نوشته مي‌شوند. مکدونالدز ممكن است تك زبانی به نظر برسد اما اين فقط به اين خاطر است كه نه نسخه ی لاتينی و نه نسخه ی سيريليك كه زينت بخش فروشگاه مکدونالدز در ماريين پلازِ مركزیِ مونيخ هستند، درتصوير گنجانده نشده اند.

Clothing store in Cairo, Egypt; source: http://bit.ly/duKNKV

McDonald’s outlet in Munich, Germany

بعضي از اين نويسه گردانی ها راحت تر از بقیه با الگوهای زبان عربی سازگار مي شوند اما تمامی آن ها مي تونند لغات قرضی محسوب شده و جزیی نامتعارف و بيگانه را در اين زبان جا دهند. بدون تعجب، ‌بعضي از عرب زبانان این لغات را آزار دهنده مي‌دانند. ال آقا ادعا می ‌كند كه اين نوع تبليغات بلادرنگ “توسط فرهنگ مقصد رد می شود” (ص.vi) .  در مورد این ادعا اطمینان قطعی ندارم با توجه به اينكه می بینم چقدر اين کار متداول است ورستوران های فست فود با چه رونقی درمنطقه مشغول کسب وکارند.

البته، انتقال نام های تجاری از يك عرصه ی زباني به عرصه ی ديگر ذاتاً دشواراست به این دلیل که ضرورتِ حفظِ نام تجاری به منظور شناخته شدن آن با ضرورتِ پاسخگو بودن به ویژگی های بازار مقصد درتضاد است. بسياري از مردم بعضي از اسامي بی مسمی ِ عجیب را شنيده و مورد تمسخر قرارداده اند. اسم هایی مثل پاجرو كه شركت میتسوبیشی قبل از معرفي آن به كشورهاي آمريكاي لاتين، زحمت چك كردن معناي آن را به خود نداد (پاجرو معادل يك فحشِ چهار حرفی دربعضي كشورهای منطقه است). فورد هم زمانی كه نُوا را به اسپانيايی زبان ها معرفي كرد، مرتكب همين اشتباه شد (نُوا در زبان اسپانيايي به معناي حركت نكردن است). من درپايان نامه ی دكتری خود يك فصل را به غلط های فاحشِ نام هایِ تجاریِ بين زباني اختصاص داده ام كه از قسمت منابع قابل دسترسي است. با اين حال، ‌اشتباهاتي از اين قبيل اساساً مربوط هستند به دوره ی قديمي، غيرحرفه اي و ابتدايي تر تبليغات، مطمئناً پيش از ظهور بازاریابی تنوع گرا (سياست همخوانی تبلیغات با گوناگونی مخاطب).

بازگردانی مکدونالدز به چند زبان (آيا بازگردانیِ چند زبانی می تواند اصطلاحی براي اين پديده باشد؟) درمونيخ واضح ترین مثال برای تدبیری است كه تا به امروز به آن رسیده ام: تلاشی آشكار برای نشان دادن تنوع به صورت نشانه ای توسط يكی از متحدالشكل ترين کمپانی های جهان.

برعكس نام های تجاری برجسته ايالات متحده همچون مکدونالدز كه درپي فاصله گرفتن سمبولیک (نشانه ای) خود از همه ی انواع سلطه، ازجمله سلطه زبانی هستند،‌ تا بتوانند تجارت سلطه گرانه ی خود را ادامه دهند، فروشگاه هاي كوچك محلي همچون سمارت درقاهره به پشتوانه و اعتبار زبان انگليسی برای جذب مشتری دلگرم هستند.

Frontpage of the IT section of the Jam-e Jam newspaper, Iran

يكي از دلايلي كه من اساساً موافق نويسه گردانی نيستم، جعلي و تقليدی بودن نام های تجاریست . سطح اين نشانه های چند زباني را اندکی خراش دهید و تك زبانی انگلیسی را در پس آن مشاهده کنید. با اين حال، من يك نمونه از نام های نوشته شده به چند زبان را در مجموعه ی اطلاعاتم دارم كه نه از جهان عرب، بلكه از ايران است : نام  بخش آی تی (فناوري اطلاعات ) روزنامه ی ايرانیِ جام جم، کلیک نام دارد. کلیک واژه ای فراتر از يك نويسه گردانی ساده است از آن جايی كه می تواند به هر دو صورت خوانده شود:

از راست به چپ بخوانيد، درساختار نوشتاری زبان عربي کلیک به دست مي‌آيد و از چپ به راست هم کلیک درساختار نوشتاری زبان لاتين حاصل مي شود. ابتكارِ چند زبانی به بهترين نحوش!

كسي  هست که مثال هايي از نويسه برگردانِ نام هایِ تجاری و تبليغات داشته باشد؟ من هميشه برای افزايش مجموعه ی خود به حالتِ آماده باشم.

Al Agha, Basem Abbas (2006). The translation of fast-food advertising texts from English into Arabic Unpublished MA dissertation, University of South Africa

London Dairy ad on a building in Abu Dhabi, UAE

Igloo ad on truck in Abu Dhabi, UAE

I’ve just come across a 2006 University of South Africa MA thesis investigating Saudi fast-food ads. The author, Basem Abbas Al Agha, finds that

[…] 97% of the respondents believed that the translations are incomprehensible in Arabic. The other 3% stated that they sometimes understand the translations. (p. 92)

Even if the sample size is rather small, these are astounding results: basically, he’s saying that the entire target population of an advertising message doesn’t get it. Small wonder that Arabic speakers often gripe about the way the Arabic language has become “infested” (Al Agha’s term; p. 82) with English. Al Agha notes that the preferred “translation” strategy in his corpus of Saudi fast-food ads is transliteration rather than translation. Transliteration is also very much in evidence elsewhere in the Arab World. Consider the following four examples. I took the first two pictures in Abu Dhabi, the third one was taken in Cairo and published by Gulf News, and I took the fourth one – surprise, surprise – in Munich.

What these signs have in common is the fact that they look bilingual but are really monolingual in two different scripts. “London Dairy” is “London Dairy” in the Roman and the Arabic script; “Igloo” is “Igloo” in the Roman and Arabic script; “Smart” is “Smart” in the Roman and Arabic script; and “McDonalds” is “McDonalds” in the Roman and Arabic script. The McDonalds sign may look monolingual but that is just because neither the Roman nor the Cyrillic versions that also grace the McDonalds outlet at Munich’s central Marienplatz fit in the picture.

Clothing store in Cairo, Egypt; source: http://gulfnews.com/news/region/egypt/minding-one-s-language-in-egypt-1.58617

McDonald’s outlet in Munich, Germany

Some of these transliterations fit the patterns of the Arabic language more comfortably than others but all of them can be considered loan-words and insert a foreign or exotic element into the Arabic language. Unsurprisingly, some Arabic speakers find them annoying. Al Agha claims that this type of advertising is outright “rejected by the target culture” (p. vi). I don’t know about that seeing how prevalent the practice is and how well fast-food restaurants in particular seem to be doing in the region.

Of course, the transfer of brand names from one language market to another is inherently a tricky business as the imperative to keep the brand constant in order to achieve brand recognition is in conflict with the imperative to be responsive to the specificity of the target market. Many people have heard of and had a good laugh at some of the more spectacular misnomers such as the one by Mitsubishi, who didn’t bother to check the meaning of Pajero before they introduced the car of this name to Latin America (it’s the equivalent of a four-letter word in some countries in the region) or Ford, who made the same mistake, when they introduced their Nova to Spanish-speaking markets (“no va” = “doesn’t move”). I’ve got a chapter on interlingual brand name bloopers in my PhD thesis, which is available from our Resources Section. However, infelicities such as these are really those of an older, less sophisticated era of advertising – certainly before the advent of diversity marketing. The “multi-scripted” (is that the term for the phenomenon?) rendition of the “McDonald’s” name in Munich is the most obvious example of the strategy I have collected to date: an obvious attempt to signal diversity symbolically by one of the most homogeneous corporations in the world.

Unlike large US brands such as McDonald’s who may seek to symbolically distance themselves from all forms of hegemony, including linguistic hegemony, in order to be able to do “hegemonic business,” small local shops such as the “Smart” tailor in Cairo still bank on the cache of English in order to attract customers.

 

Frontpage of the IT section of the Jam-e Jam newspaper, Iran

One of the reasons I mostly dislike transliterated brand-names is that they are so obviously fake. Scratch the surface of these “multilingual” signs a tiny bit and all that is beneath it is English monolingualism. However, I also have (one!) example of a very sophisticated multi-scripted brand name in my corpus! This one comes not from the Arab world but from Iran: the name of the IT section of the Iranian newspaper Jam-e Jam is “click.” “Click” is much more than a simple transliteration as the word can be read both ways: read from right-to-left, you get “click” in the Arabic script; read from left-to-right, you get “click” in the Roman script. Multilingual creativity at its best!

Anyone got examples of transliterated brand names and advertising? I’m always on the look-out to increase my collection

Reference

Al Agha, Basem Abbas (2006). The translation of fast-food advertising texts from English into Arabic Unpublished MA dissertation, University of South Africa

One dad in our trick-or-treating party figured Prestÿ was German: “Don’t you guys put umlauts on everything?” “No.” I figured it was Turkish but am told that a y with umlaut does not exist in Turkish, either. At least, Turkish is an educated guess seeing that the wrapper also has “Sütlü Çikolata” written on it. “Sütlü Çikolata” is Turkish for “Milk Chocolate” – the other bit of language on the wrapper I recognize.

Further clues: The candy was found in a trick-or-treat bag in Abu Dhabi and so can be presumed to have been purchased in the UAE although there is no Arabic writing on the wrapper. There is no country-of-origin information on the wrapper, either, although there is some illegible small print under something that looks like “asas” and which might conceivably contain statutory information if it were not too small to be legible. Googling “Elvan chocolates” produces a further Turkish connection: Elvan is the name of an Istanbul-based company producing chocolates and pastries for “more than 70 countries over 6 continents.”

Of course, it doesn’t really matter whether Prestÿ “exists” in any real language – as long as people associate it with a particular language and transfer the associations they have with that language onto the product, Prestÿ is doing its job. Along the lines “I suppose Prestÿ is German for ‘prestige’ so the qualities of German must apply to the chocolate, too.” Mostly, German is associated with cars and technology, though, where it tends to be used to connote high quality. I know because I’ve written a few research papers on the iconic use of foreign languages in advertising and if you want to follow up on multilingualism in advertising, you can find some of my research papers in our resources section.

More likely, Prestÿ is just supposed to be “general European” and supposed to connote the sophistication of European chocolate and cuisine. There’s a lot of multilingual meaning-making on this humble little piece of junk and I would love to hear your interpretations!