History Main / ForeignLookingFont

* ''Film/AroundTheWorldInEightyDays2004'' has this with all the map fonts throughout (eg, Hindi-style script for the Chyrons in India, etc.).

* The title of Creator/GameArts' UsefulNotes/PC88 game ''Harakiri'' is written in vaguely Sino-Japanese-looking romaji. Considering that the game purports to be based on the work of a fictitious Orientalist and was only released in Japan, it's likely intended to parody this trope.

** In ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'', dialogue in Klatchian is written in an Arabic font, and words written by the golems are in an archaic font, to invoke their background in Judaic myth. According to "The Annotated Pratchett File":

** In ''Literature/FeetOfClay'', the Golems use the Hebrewish looking font. In ''Literature/MakingMoney'', Golems use the Eochian alphabet created/discovered by Doctor John Dee, astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I.

** In some of the books, strong accents are indicated by a change of font mid-sentence, sometimes around a single letter.
*** When someone is speaking Klatchian, they have the whole sentence in the pseudo-Arabic font. When they're speaking Morporkian with a Klatchian accent, the letter that changes font is usually an H (in the one case of someone speaking Klatchian with a Morporkian accent, every letter ''except'' H is in the Klatchian pseudo-Arabic font). If you actually know anything about Arabic, this is a bit of a BilingualBonus, because there are three Arabic letters that can be transliterated as H, and they all sound different.
*** Lampshaded in ''{{Literature/Jingo}}'' by 71-Hour Achmed, who is posing as a sort of 'joke' Klatchian for reasons of his own. His "H'I go, h'I come back' phrase is based on a character in the once-popular 1940s BBC radio series ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_That_Man_Again ITMA]]''.

* ''Film/DetectivePikachu'' uses a font that resembles Japanese characters in its logo, opening credits, and various in-movie text.
* Creator/PeterJackson's ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' has both: Although lots of texts appear 'properly' written in Creator/JRRTolkien's constructed scripts for Middle-earth, various instances of text are rendered as English in Latin letters for the convenience of the viewer, but made to look vaguely like[[note]]written in American Uncial font[[/note]] the scripts they are supposed to be. Most notable is probably the Tengwar-imitating font (an originally Elven script, but universally used), even down to the ''tehtar'' diacritics, which in proper Tengwar are vowel signs and here are added to the corresponding vowel letters.
* ''Film/QuantumOfSolace'' used exotic fonts to label each country the story takes place in. [[Website/TheBestPageInTheUniverse Maddox]] criticized this use of the trope in his review of it, saying that its use crossed the line into pretentious and implies that ViewersAreMorons.
* ''Film/StreetFighter'' takes place in the vaguely Southeast Asian country of Shadaloo, where all signs are written in English with pseudo-Thai characters.

* The kanji in ''Manga/BlackButler's'' title are written in the style of Old English blackletter calligraphy, reflecting the show's Victorian English setting. (No, really; see its page illustration!)

* Sometime around the Hoenn Saga in the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime, the producers used a faux-Japanese text on signs, letters, etc., to make it more "acceptable" for a global audience. It appeared earlier in the series too. It doesn't even try to look Japanese a lot of the time, it looks like mixed-up symbols.

* Wiki/TheOtherWiki calls these fonts "ethnic typefaces" and has [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface#Ethnic_typefaces a small section dedicated to them]] in its general article on typefaces.

* The various forms of Chinese Restaurant Font, collectively called the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonton_font "Wonton Font"]] by Wiki/TheOtherWiki. A Roman font meant to be reminiscent of the strokes of Chinese characters, which graces every Asian restaurant in the universe outside Asia itself. There's even specifically a font called [[http://www.dafont.com/chinese-takeaway.font "Chinese Takeaway,"]] ostensibly used for this purpose.

* Acting Lovers (the German Eurodance group a la E-Rotic) uses a modified wonton font for their logo.

* One of the Chemical Brothers' albums uses an Arabic-styled font.

* The title of ''Music/ExodusAlbum'' by Music/BobMarley is styled to resemble the Ethiopian language Amharic.

** Similarly, the substitution of V for U makes something instantly Latin. Never mind those J's, K's (as in BiggusDickus), and W's, none of which the Romans had.

* The blog HanziSmatter have identified the [[http://hanzismatter.blogspot.de/2006/08/gibberish-asian-font-mystery-solved.html "gibberish Asian font"]] that tattoo studios use to “translate” English names into what they claim is Chinese.
* When ThoseWackyNazis created an art exhibition to brainwash their people into believing that all Jews were not only {{Greedy Jew}}s, but also [[AlwaysChaoticEvil dishonest, disloyal and murderous]] {{Dirty Communists}}, the advertising for their exhibition [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plakat_der_ewige_Jude,_1937.jpg bore writing that looks like Hebrew script]] but reads "Der ewige Jude" (German for "The eternal Jew").
* More benignly, the government of the Republic of UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}} was fond of using fonts based on Celtic letterforms for official Irish Gaelic signage and logos, which was largely phased out in the '60s and '70s. Compare the [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Irish_Post_%26_Telegraphs_P%26T_%28Ireland%29.png 1924 Posts and Telegraphs monogram]] with its' [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/40/Minister_for_Posts_and_Telegraphs_of_Ireland.png late '60s replacement]].
* Wiki/TheOtherWiki calls these fonts "mimicry typefaces" and has [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typeface#Mimicry_typefaces a small section dedicated to them]] in their general article on typefaces.

* ''The Big Red Adventure'', the sequel to the adventure game ''VideoGame/NipponSafesInc'', is set in post-Communist Russia and all the text is written in a pseudo-Cyrillic font. The title also makes use of TheBackwardsR. Interestingly, at the end of the game the words "The End?" turn from that faux Cyrillic script to a faux Arabic one, to imply that [[SequelHook the next adventure]] would be set in some Middle Eastern country. However, the company folded and a sequel was never made

Compare TranslationPunctuation and TheBackwardsR. See TranslationConvention for the spoken version. This is the visual equivalent of JustAStupidAccent. If the font is so weird that you can't make out what the letters are meant to be, it's {{Wingdinglish}}.