History Main / HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier

* In ''Film/DragonBlade'', very few characters are capable of speaking multiple languages in the movie (with Chinese and Latin (using English as stand-in) being most prominent, since the film is mainly about Chinese and Romans, but with background characters from other nations appearing from time to time). This allows the main character Huo An to openly plan a way to escape with his team in front of the Roman soldiers, who don't understand Chinese.

* One of the ''Series/{{CSI NY}}'' tie in novels has a subversion, with Stella and Lindsay processing a scene at a bakery. The owner thinks he's getting away with calling them a derrogatory Italian term for a female cop, but Stella speaks a little Italian, and though she's rusty, she knows exactly what he's saying.
* In ''Literature/{{Dune}}'', the deadly Count Fenring and his wife make heavy use of ObfuscatingStupidity, including punctuating their speech with lots of drawn-out hmmmmmmmmmmmmmms as an apparent Verbal Tic. When the book switches to their point of view, it turns out the humming is a code language to let them privately converse and coordinate their act in full view of everyone.

* The German book ''Literature/{{Mordswiesn}}'' has half-Italian Bellina telling us that she enjoys being foreign because it means that whenever she's stopped by the police, she can pretend she doesn't speak German.

* ''Series/MotherlandFortSalem'': In "[[Recap/MotherlandFortSalemS3E5CessionInSession Cession In Session]]" Prof. Grafton insults Col. Jarrett in Mothertongue (who's just banned his class), to his students' amusement. Jarrett looks like he suspects he's been made a fool of but can only stew quietly.
-->'''Prof. Grafton''': ''(in Mothertongue)'' Please continue to spread the stench of your diseased genitalia all over base. ''(Switches back to English)'' Enjoy your day.

* This was referred to when Dun Meng was taken hostage by the Boston Marathon bombers. When a friend called him, one of them warned him that he'd kill him if spoke Chinese, clearly suspecting that he'd try to pull this trope in order to call for help.

** During Lestat de Lioncourt's (a Frenchman) [[Recap/InterviewWithTheVampire2022S1E1InThroesOfIncreasingWonder first meeting]] with Louis de Pointe du Lac (a Creole who knows French), he speaks a few sentences in French which are for Louis' ears only, so Lily doesn't understand the parts of the conversation that Lestat wants to keep private between himself and his new LoveInterest. Lily asks Louis for a translation, but he refuses.
** In "[[Recap/InterviewWithTheVampire2022S1E4TheRuthlessPursuitOfBloodWithAllA ...The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding]]", Lestat and Louis argue in French so that Claudia doesn't know exactly what they're discussing about her. She scribbles in her diary that "Fighting sounds funny in French."

* ''Film/{{Sputnik}}''. Two doctors have to discuss their plan to escape a secret military facility while being watched by a guard, so they stand over a body they're examining and discuss its condition, switching to Latin in mid-sentence so it sounds like they're using medical jargon.
* ''Film/TheTwoPopes'': During a private meeting with Cardinal Bergolio, Pope Benedict XVI notes that when he has to make hard and tough announcements, he will deliver them fully in Latin. This is because only about 20% of his Cardinals understand Latin fluently and so only 20% will understand what he has said while others struggle to catch up. [[spoiler:True to this, when he announces his resignation from the Papacy, it is in full Latin and over half of the Cardinals present turn to the other asking if they just heard what they think they heard]].
* Pretty much the whole point of the movie ''Film/{{Windtalkers}}''. Based on real-life events; in both World Wars, the American military in some cases obfuscated codes by having speakers of Native American languages such as Navajo and Cherokee relate them. Even if the enemy found someone would could understand (for example) Navajo, they'd still have to break the code itself. If transmitted in English an enemy codebreaker (who ''might'' be expected to know English) could reasonably guess that "turtle" might refer to a tank, but if you don't know what the world for "turtle" is and can't even pick it out of what is (to you) a stream of gibberish, your task as a codebreaker just got significantly harder.
* In ''Film/FortyCarats'', Ann and her mother Maud discuss Ann's daughter Trina in Norwegian, which she doesn't speak, to Trina's annoyance.

* ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'': In Season 11, Lopez reveals that this is the only perk of being on Red Team; since none of them speak Spanish, he can insult them all he likes and they'll never notice.[[spoiler: Even after Grif learns, he still feigns ignorance to {{Troll}} Lopez.]]

* ''Series/TheBill''. The detectives arrest an Eastern European drug dealer and force him to set up a drug buy. They insist he speak English while making the call so he won't pass on a warning, but when no-one shows up the dealer smugly points out that they never speak English while making a deal in case they're overheard, so his friends were warned anyway.

* ''Series/{{House}}'':
** One episode has a Chinese mother and daughter talk in Mandarin so House won't understand. [[SubvertedTrope Of course]], he speaks it, making it a case of BilingualBackfire.
** House blackmails a guy in Mandarin. Presumably, if he didn't get his money he'd repeat what he said in English.
** In another episode, Wilson is stitching up a Latino day-laborer who injured his thumb. House takes one look at the guy's red eyes, then tells him in Spanish to bring eyedrops the next time he decides to get high at work and accidentally breaks his thumb. Wilson, who doesn't speak Spanish, asks the patient what House said.
-->'''Patient:''' He says you're a very good doctor.

* ''Series/{{Chuck}}'': When Chuck has a gun to his head during a shootout in the Buy More in "Chuck Versus the Nemesis", Bryce asks him, [[NerdsSpeakKlingon in Klingon]] so the villain can't understand, if he's wearing a BulletproofVest. After Chuck confirms it also in Klingon, Bryce [[ShootTheHostage shoots him]] and then takes out the enemy.

* In ''Series/{{Revenge}}'', Emily offers to act as a translator when Daniel is having dinner with a Japanese investor. The "investor" is actually Emily's mentor, and the two of them spend the dinner talking about Emily's revenge plots while Emily makes up translations for Daniel.

* Happens and also discussed in ''Series/NorthernExposure''. The older Native Americans all speak Tlingit when they don't want the youngsters to understand what they're saying. When Ed talks to Joel about this, Joel mentions a similar thing happening in Queens where Alter Kockers speak in Yiddish in order to keep secrets. Both Tlingit and Yiddish are dying languages; Ed decides to dub ''Film/ThePrisonerOfZenda'' into Tlingit in order to preserve the language.
* On the first episode of ''Series/{{Fringe}}'', a couple of Iranian businessmen speak Farsi to decide on a figure to pay Peter Bishop. Unbeknownst to them, he also speaks Farsi, and agrees to the figure they choose.
* In the ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' episode "The Understudy", Elaine feels that her Korean manicurists make jokes about her when they speak to each other in Korean (she's right). Eventually, she brings along Frank Costanza with her, who speaks Korean, and [[BilingualBackfire gets upset when they insult him too]].
* In ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', Gibbs and Abby often speak to each other in sign language to avoid other people hearing their conversation.
* On ''Series/ImpracticalJokers'' one time the mission was to get people to comment on bogus news stories in Times Square, and when approached two women commented "We don't speak English." It was lampshaded by the guy.

* On ''Series/OrangeIsTheNewBlack'', the Latina girls speak notably more Spanish in front of the white or black girls than they do when no one is around.

* In ''Series/JaneTheVirgin'', [[TheIllegal Alba]] is in serious danger of being deported -- despite being comatose and unable to speak for herself, leaving her daughter Xo scrambling to find a way to keep her in the country. While on the phone with Jane, Xo lets her know what's going on, but tells her in Spanish because there's a police officer (who doesn't know what's going on and would be obligated to report it if he did) in the room with her.
* In ''Series/{{Heroes}}'', HRG manages to block Matt Parkman's telepathy by thinking in Japanese (which HRG is fluent in).

* ''Series/{{Friends}}'': In "[[Recap/FriendsS10E13TheOneWhereJoeySpeaksFrench The One Where Joey Speaks French]]", when Joey fails to impress the play's director with his "French", Phoebe speaks to the director in French so that Joey won't understand; she tells him that Joey is her mildly retarded younger brother and asks him to humor him. The director lets Joey down easy, telling him that his French is great, but they're going to go with someone else for the part.

* In one episode of ''Series/{{Shtisel}}'', Shulem uses Yiddish to tell his daughter he has a heart condition and doesn't expect to have much time left, since her kids only understand Hebrew. He makes sure they don't know it beforehand, though.
* ''Series/MotherlandFortSalem'': In "[[Recap/MotherlandFortSalemS3E5CessionInSession Cession In Session]]" Prof. Grafton insults Col. Jarrett in Mothertongue (who's just banned his class), to his students' amusement. Jarrett looks like he suspects he's been made a fool of but can only stew quietly.
-->'''Prof. Grafton''': ''(in Mothertongue)'' Please continue to spread the stench of your diseased genitalia all over base. ''(Switches back to English)'' Enjoy your day.
* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'':
** During Lestat de Lioncourt's (a Frenchman) [[Recap/InterviewWithTheVampire2022S1E1InThroesOfIncreasingWonder first meeting]] with Louis de Pointe du Lac (a Creole who knows French), he speaks a few sentences in French which are for Louis' ears only, so Lily doesn't understand the parts of the conversation that Lestat wants to keep private between himself and his new LoveInterest. Lily asks Louis for a translation, but he refuses.
** In the fourth episode, Lestat and Louis argue in French so that Claudia doesn't know exactly what they're discussing about her. She scribbles in her diary that "Fighting sounds funny in French."

** During Lestat de Lioncourt's (a Frenchman) first meeting with Louis de Pointe du Lac (a Creole who knows French), he speaks a few sentences in French which are for Louis' ears only, so Lily doesn't understand the parts of the conversation that Lestat wants to keep private between himself and his new LoveInterest. Lily asks Louis for a translation, but he refuses.

* Another example is Wenzhou dialect during a few wars in China. Wenzhou dialect is one of the most difficult dialects among the ChineseLanguages, making it suitable to be used as a code.

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* ''Film/Hoffa'': The Italian mobsters initially only speak Italian to Hoffa. Fortunately, Hoffa has an associate who is fluent in Italian to work around this. Later on in the film, as Hoffa's star rises the Mafia stops hiding behind the language barrier.

* In an early ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' strip, Tedd and Grace have taken each other's forms for a date, and are trying (unsuccessfully) to hide this from Elliot and Sarah. When Tedd doesn't want Grace "taking a peek" in the restroom, he tells her to change back before going the bathroom, but he [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=335 uses an alien language to do so.]]