CITYSPEAK.

March 15, 2003 by 5 Comments

This page from the FAQ of a site devoted to the movie Blade Runner has a detailed analysis of the multilingual “Cityspeak” (“a mixture of words and expressions from Spanish, French, Chinese, German, Hungarian and Japanese”) used in the movie. Sample:

Gaff: Monsieur, azonnal kövessen engem bitte. [French-Hungarian-German: “Sir, follow me immediately please!” (Thanks to eMU for translating the Hungarian part:- “azonnal” – means immediately; “kövessen” – means follow imperative; “engem” – means me. And of course “Monsieur” is French for Sir and “bitte” is German for please.)]

Comments

  1. M o I r A says
    March 15, 2003 at 9:45 pm

    Wow! I’d read that Olmos had come up with most of the Cityspeak in my “Future Noir: The Making of Bladerunner” book, but it had no translations. ((falls in love with Olmos))

    Mr Olmos has some Hungarian Jewish background

    I KNEW it!

  2. mark says
    March 16, 2003 at 8:54 am

    I saw Blade Runner before I started learning Hungarian, and an American friend has been telling me for years there is some Hung in it. So he’s right!

  3. Gideon Strauss says
    March 16, 2003 at 8:59 am

    Big happy smile.

  4. Songdog says
    March 16, 2003 at 12:57 pm

    There’s supposed to be a new Blade Runner DVD on its way (the release date has not been announced), which will most likely include both a new, "real" director’s cut and the original work print. I thought you lot might be as interested as I am 🙂

  5. languagehat says
    August 1, 2024 at 5:17 pm

    I watched the Blu-ray of Blade Runner (director’s cut) this afternoon, and I was very glad to have this post and the linked site to aid me.

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