Francophone Hulk

Bill is having another contest. The object of this one is to tell the funniest joke. Well, what could be funnier than the Hulk speaking French? These scanned images come from an old French translation I purchased many years ago.

I suppose it may not strike you as that funny if you've never studied the language. It's not just that the Hulk is a savage brute speaking French. What's really funny is that he speaks elegant French while still maintaining his characteristic self-references in the third person. Other than that, as far as I can tell, his use of the language is flawless, even to the point of his having mastered past participle agreement in the plus-que-parfait tense of the indicative, which is often a stumbling block even to advanced students of the language.

When he says "Jarella était venue . . ." (picture on left, second panel, first balloon), he understands that "venir" is one of the handful of intransitives that require the verb "être" as an auxiliary (rather than "avoir") to form the perfect tenses. He further understands that when "être" is used, the past participle, which would normally agree in gender and number with a direct object preceding the verb, must instead agree with the subject. Furthermore, he grasps that, because he is speaking of an event in the past that occurred in relation to and preceding another past event, he must use the plus-que-parfait (past perfect) in lieu of the passé composé (present perfect). The Hulk may have his shortcomings, but I'll say this for him: His French is kick-ass!

Now why would the French do such a poor job of translating the Hulk's speech patterns? Here's my theory. The French take grammar very seriously and are incredibly protective of it. I'm not exaggerating. If a math teacher calls on a student to give an answer, and the answer given is mathematically correct but in improper French, then it is not accepted! If you compare colonial British countries with French ones, it's interesting to note that pidgins cropped up all over the place in the British Empire. In fact, the British were even known to reprimand the colonized for speaking proper English, since they used language as a class divider. On the other hand, look at the countries that were once under French rule. I don't think any French pidgins have developed anywhere in the world. They would never have been allowed to emerge.

So you can see how important it is for the French to clean up the Hulk's grammar, especially in view of all the children who would be exposed to the green goliath's grammatical bastardizations. The Hulk may be little more than a savage brute who deals with most problems by finding something or someone to smash, but, by God, there is no way in Hell that he will be allowed to speak less than perfect French. Think of the children!

Okay, just in case you're curious as to what the Hulk is saying, here is my translation.

First Panel:
letterbox: And all the Rage builds with the memories.
Hulk: "ARRGHH"
letterbox: All the suffering caused by the death of his beloved.

Second Panel:
Hulk: "Jarella had come to the Earth, because she needed Hulk."
Hulk: "But the world of Hulk killed her!"
footnote: In fact, Crypto-Man killed her in issue 23 of Hulk.

Third Panel:
Hulk: "Hulk will take Jarella home."
letterbox: Poings of [something] weaken the cement that covered the runway.

And here is what he says in the second graphic.

First Panel:
Hulk: "The soldiers fire at Hulk."

Second Panel:
Hulk: "They shoot stupid rockets."

Third Panel:
Hulk: "Hulk will catch them . . ."

Fourth Panel:
Hulk: ". . . and make of them a large ball of metal . . ."

Fifth Panel:
Hulk: ". . . then send it upon the soldiers!"
Hulk: "What's wrong, soldiers? Why don't you shoot anymore?"

I often tell people, "You haven't lived until you've seen the Hulk speaking French." Well, now you can relax, for you have seen it and been fulfilled.

Comments

[Vicki Smith]

French has its share of creoles, which from what I just read, develop from pidgins. Look at this kewl thing:

From: http://babel.uoregon.edu/romance/rl407/creole/creole.html

"Pidgins and creoles can be considered the linguistic product of two or more languages that have combined to form a language that enables people from different language groups to communicate. A pidgin language is not the native language of anyone but is used as an auxiliary or supplemental language between two mutually unintelligible speech communities. Pidgins are reduced languages, characterized by having a limited vocabulary and a simple grammar which serve to satisfy basic communication needs. Historically these languages have primarily arisen in trade centers and plantations (with slaves from different language backgrounds)&emdash;areas where large groups of people lacking a common language need to communicate. By definition, a pidgin has no native speakers; it is always a person's second (or more) language.

In contrast, a creole language is a pidgin that has developed and become the mother tongue for a community of people. This process is called creolization and results in an expanded vocabulary and grammar structure that allow for communication as rich and complex as that of non-creole languages. While pidgins are regarded as reduced languages, creoles are considered expanded languages. That is, while pidgins develop to enable communication in relatively isolated domains, creoles allow for a full range of expressive possibilities on a par with more "recognized" languages. "

[Tvindy]

And you researched it on the University of Oregon website, which is where I'm studying.

I suppose it is true that there are creoles based in part on French. And I suppose that they had to have come from some sort of pidgin French. I guess in my passion to write about the Hulk, I overlooked that fact. It is interesting that there are no remaining pidgin varieties of French in the world today, but there are of English. I don't know what that means, though. Anyway, thanks for the info. (Maybe you've given me a new idea for a paper.)

[Drew]

I'm a BIG old school Hulk fan and was very happy to see your blog talk about a french speaking Hulk.

While putting a link to your story, I couldn't help but think that perhaps Hulk speaks better french, because that's his native tounge. This to me made some sort of sense, he speaks bad english not because he's stupid( actually many of my favorite hulk moments are when he shows he's more perceptive then people give him credit for) but because his native tounge is FRENCH and he's not good at learning english.
Again I read hulk for over a decade( 70's-80's) and NOT ONCE did Betty or Doc Sampson try to help Hulk speak better English... maybe if they had Hulk would speak English as well as he does French.

[Tvindy]

The problem with that theory is that the Hulk came out of Dr. Banner, who is clearly an American. I remember that in the 80's the Hulk went for several issues with his Dr. Banner persona completely suppressed. (That was when Dr. Strange banished him to an interdimensional nexus from which he could travel to and explore other worlds in the hope of finding a new home.) During this period, he became more intelligent and developed his own personality a bit more. The theory was that without the Banner persona constantly fighting against him, he was free to develop and follow his own path. Then the writers got tired of that, re-introduced Banner, and returned the Hulk to earth. (I believe Alpha Flight did this inadvertantly in the process of trying to procure a new body for Sasquatch, who was dying.)

[Drew]

Yeah... I *know* that according to PAD( and I don't disagree, just mentioning the writer who came up with this) suggests that Banner suffers from MPD( multiple personality disorder)- and this fits into other comics as there was one time where Hulk was being analyzed by Doc. Sampson and he clearly remembers Banner's life.
It's just that I've seen/read stories with MPDs where the different personalities have different genders, so why not different nationalities...

and your memory is pretty good. He was banished because after Banner being in complete control, he lost TOTAL control and Hulk went into a primal state... very low vocab. AND he was 'resuced' by Alpha Flight.

So my theory doesn't hold any water whatsoever. I sorta knew that before I posted- I think it's much more probable that the translator simply didn't know that the Hulk was talking in the 3rd person to show his lack of grammer. The translator prolly wasn't a Hulk fan and just translated what was in front of him. That's sometimes the problem with translations- they can translate the words but sometimes lose the proper meaning. I just thought almost as amusing as the Hulk speaking perfect french, would be a French Hulk... with a purple beret and a baggette.
( other proof that he's slow and not french is the nicknames he gives his fellow defenders- because somehow it's easier for him to call Valkyrie "Sword Girl" then learn her name)(

[Tvindy]

Yes, it's really too bad what Marvel did to the Hulk in the 80s. They kept trying to change the premise, but every idea was worse than the last, and the storyline lost all credibility after awhile. After that, any possibility of delving into the Hulk's psyche in a meaningful way was lost. These are the ideas I remember (probably not in the right order):

--Banner is completely in control of the Hulk. He can become the Hulk at will and is able to transform himself instantly. He vows to dedicate the rest of his life to employing his super strength to making amends for all the destruction wrought by him in the past while fighting the military. (I guess he was unaware of all the good the Hulk had already done as one of the Defenders.)

--Banner gradually loses control and returns from the Secret Wars in a savage state. The Hulk takes over completely, and Banner's mind gives up and dies. It's made clear on many occasions that Banner is gone for good. Dr. Strange banishes the Hulk to a dimensional nexus from which he can explore other worlds in the search for a new home. He explores a new one in every issue but is never happy, because his strength is useless on all of them (so he can do no harm to the inhabitants).

The Hulk is accidentally returned to Earth by Alpha Flight. Banner is revived, and his body is somehow separated from the Hulk's. Banner assembles a team of Hulk hunters to chase down and capture the Hulk.

Banner ends up merging with the Hulk again, and we are back to square one.

But then he reverts back to being the original grey Hulk, so now things are totally different again.

And then Rick Jones turns into another Hulk. It seems that his exposure to gamma rays in the first issue was less severe, so he took a bit longer (decades) to be affected. Now the comic is about two hulks rather than one, but they're easy to tell apart, because one is grey. At this point I just stopped reading.