Line #29 Main/YouNoTakeCandle


1	%% Image and caption selected per Image Pickin' thread https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1331057261018943300
2	%% Please don't change or remove either without starting a new thread
3	%%
4	[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/BreathOfFireIV https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fuchumansharp_9800.jpg]]]]
5	[-[[caption-width-right:350:"Yes, but [[HypocriticalHumor please first learning how to better English.]]"]]-]
6
7	->''"Friends wondering why Nopon talk so strange? Well, we take high ecclesiastical form of Late Modern Noponese and map grammatical patterns onto Hom Hom language. This give us adorable yet expressive Nopon speech... Actually, me just made that up. Though you must admit, it pretty impressive theory."''
8	-->-- '''[[RidiculouslyCuteCritter Nopon Villager]]''', ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1''
9
10	When a character or group needs to be portrayed as [[HollywoodNatives foreign, primitive, or inferior in intellect]], or perhaps just childlike, yet still intelligible and able to communicate, the language of these characters is spoken as a grammatically abhorrent mess. Characters could be speaking a mutilated version of the language they learned from another culture, or a [[HulkSpeak butchered version]] of their own language, or simply a language so "primitive" it appears from an outside perspective to lack complexity. This trope is OlderThanPrint, going all the way back to [[Creator/GeoffreyChaucer Chaucer]].
11
12	If the work is taking on a superior versus inferior viewpoint, the superior beings might use SpockSpeak or YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe to contrast the barbarism of the other group. The inferior race is often shown speaking pidgin English and omitting articles, auxiliary verbs, possessive pronouns, and sometimes prepositions. The speakers [[ThirdPersonPerson often refer to themselves in third person]]. It is quite similar to HulkSpeak, though even non-combatants can or will use it. In some cases, it is a form of AliensSpeakingEnglish, in which the creatures have their own language and [[EloquentInMyNativeTongue speak English as a very poorly learned secondary language]].
13
14	This trope comes from two sources. First, English as a language has very little inflection, meaning words don't change their forms to cover case, tense, grammatical gender, etc. very much if at all. Instead, English requires a lot of small auxiliary words to convey the same information which other languages do in much fewer but more complex words. At the same time, you don't ''need'' these auxiliary words to make a comprehensible sentence (hence the adage, "English is an easy language to speak badly.") This leads to the second source: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin pidgin languages,]] which are highly simplified languages used by groups without a common language to communicate. Pidgins are stripped down to the absolute bare minimum of grammar needed to get one's point across, to make them easier to learn; some common English idioms like "long time no see", "sorry, no go" or "no X, no Y" are presumed to have their origin in the Chinese-English pidgin that emerged when the United Kingdom started commercial relationships with China.[[note]]Due to modern Mandarin's pretty minimal grammar, some like "long time no see" (or "好久不见") are word-for-word translations of legitimate Chinese phrases anyway.[[/note]]
15
16	There's actually a scientific term for this kind of speech pattern: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrammatism agrammatic speech.]]
17
18	The TropeNamer is ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', where kobolds, who wear candles on their heads to light their way in the mines, say this when attacked by a player character.
19
20	{{Supertrope}} to the [[RaceTropes more racial]] AsianSpeekeeEngrish and TontoTalk, and like them sometimes TruthInTelevision, although also like them it can sometimes also be considered offensive or politically incorrect if used poorly. Compare HulkSpeak and StrangeSyntaxSpeaker. If the character ''can'' speak proper language, but nevertheless chooses to speak like this for some reason, it's ElectiveBrokenLanguage. If the speaker is otherwise very capable in their own language, then it is EloquentInMyNativeTongue. A softer version of this trope is PoirotSpeak where characters who speak a language quite fluently will occasionally insert syntax errors or bad grammar to remind the viewer that they are indeed foreigners. Unrelated to YouCantGetYeFlask, except in sense that we suck compared to [[MasterComputer computer overlords]].
21	----
22	!!Example subpages:
23	[[index]]
24	* YouNoTakeCandle/AnimeAndManga
25	* YouNoTakeCandle/ComicBooks
26	* YouNoTakeCandle/FanWorks
27	* YouNoTakeCandle/{{Film}}
28	* YouNoTakeCandle/{{Literature}}
29	* YouNoTakeCandle/LiveActionTV
30	* YouNoTakeCandle/{{Theatre}}
31	* YouNoTakeCandle/VideoGames
32	* YouNoTakeCandle/{{Webcomics}}
33	* YouNoTakeCandle/WebOriginal
34	* YouNoTakeCandle/WesternAnimation
35	* YouNoTakeCandle/RealLife
36	[[/index]]
37	!!Other examples:
38	[[foldercontrol]]
39
40	[[folder:Music]]
41	* Demonstrated by ''Music/{{Massacration}}'', a Brazilian AffectionateParody of metal bands. "Far away/across the sea/Master never grow/Now the way/Against the fear/Master will is sure."
42	* Music/JonathanCoulton's song ''Code Monkey'' is done entirely in this style, [[JustifiedTrope being sung from the perspective of an actual monkey]].
43	* From the Dethklok song "Face Fisted", lines like these:
44	-->''I am be dangerous now''\
45	''Not me hurt''\
46	''When stairs fell down''\
47	''Me pushed by you''\
48	''Me hit head''\
49	''Me nose broke''\
50	''Soon you be dead''
51	* Mark Heard's "How to Grow Up Big and Strong" (later covered by Rich Mullins) is like this throughout the song. "Strong man strangle universe/He drown the stars" and so forth.
52	[[/folder]]
53
54	[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
55	* In one ''ComicStrip/{{BC}}'' strip, the Italian Anno Domini and the Amerind Conahonty converse in this way. When asked how they can understand each other, coming as they do from different parts of the world, they explain, "Is universal language. Is broken English."
56	* The crocodiles in ''ComicStrip/PearlsBeforeSwine'' mostly talk like this to convey their lack of intelligence.
57	* Artur from ''ComicStrip/BigNate'', hailing from Belarus, speaks in this manner. All the girls at P.S. 38 find this adorable.
58	[[/folder]]
59
60	[[folder:Pinball]]
61	* In Williams' ''Pinball/{{Taxi}}'' pinball game, "Gorbie" (UsefulNotes/MikhailGorbachev) talks like this.
62	* "Boris" (a caricature of Boris Yelsin) does the same thing in ''Pinball/{{Diner}}''.
63	* The antagonist of ''Pinball/{{Gorgar}}'' talks like this. Justified in that he has a vocabulary of seven words.
64	-->'''Gorgar:''' "Me... got... you!"
65	* Done by the attacking aliens of ''Pinball/{{Firepower}},'' coming this with MachineMonotone.
66	-->"Fire - Power - Destroy - You"
67	[[/folder]]
68
69	[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
70	* Wrestling/YoshihiroTajiri English sentences tend to be either overly simplistic or rudeness of the ClusterFBomb variety. It's played with however in that these almost always impress just because so few people know he can even speak English at all. Ditto his Wrestling/{{ECW}} rival Super Crazy.
71	* Lin Bairon in Tajiri's SMASH and Wrestling New Classic promotions. She spoke English with a lot of confidence and enthusiasm, displaying excellent pronunciation, a decent vocabulary and terrible grammar.
72	[[/folder]]
73
74	[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
75	* Subverted in ''Series/{{Mongrels}}''. Nelson uses this to try to communicate with Rob the chimpanzee when he first meets him. Rob assumes that Nelson normally talks like that and responds in the same way, until they realise their mistake and switch to normal English.
76	* Cookie Monster from ''Series/SesameStreet'' usually talks this way, referring to himself as "me".
77	* In ''Film/TheDarkCrystal'', the otherwise well-spoken Skeksis Chamberlain speaks this way during his encounter with the Gelflings. In the original cut of the film, this would have been the only scene in the film in which a Skeksis actually speaks English, before it was changed to make their speech always understandable. The moment therefore makes little sense unless you assume that either TranslationConvention is in effect for all other scenes featuring the Skeksis, or else that the Chamberlain is using ObfuscatingStupidity to unsuccessfully put the Gelflings at ease.
78	** In ''Series/TheDarkCrystalAgeOfResistance'', the Chamblerlain has these speech patterns at ''all times'' now, even when among his fellow Skeksis. Considering how smarmy and manipulative he is, the ObfuscatingStupidity answer is likely now canon.
79	* All the puppets in ''Series/{{Oobi}}'' talk this way.
80	[[/folder]]
81
82	[[folder:Radio]]
83	* ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'': The episode "Bartering with Chief Thundercloud" has the eponymous chief and his wife speak in this matter. Miss Brooks is flattered by Mrs. Thudercloud's compliment, however.
84	--->'''Mrs. Thundercloud''': Miss Brooks, she very pretty!
85	* ''Radio/TheGoonShow'' occasionally had "primitive" characters (Africans, Arabs, Red Indians, etc), who were usually played by the show's resident (black) singer Ray Ellington. Any UnfortunateImplications of this were partly subverted by Ellington's character clearly being more intelligent than any of the white characters. And it was the 1950s...
86	* Parodied in a 1949 Radio/BobAndRay skit featuring Pronto, sidekick to the Lone Agent:
87	-->'''Pronto''' ''(Bob)'': Ug. Lone, that be completely impossible. You would be implicating me in crime, in which I can have no hand.\
88	'''Lone''' ''(Ray)'': Huh? Is this Pronto speaking?\
89	'''Pronto:''' Ug.\
90	'''Lone:''' Where'd you get the education?\
91	'''Pronto:''' Me go Harvard. Me [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Braves Boston brave.]]
92	* ''The Bob Lassiter Show'' had sketches of Dingo Boy, (voice of a then unknown Adam Carolla) who searched the land in order to "Find man who killed parents".
93	[[/folder]]
94
95	[[folder:Stand Up Comedy]]
96	* In one of her standup acts, Creator/MargaretCho once joked that an advantage to being of Asian descent in the United States while going out to bars was that, when getting hit on by a guy in whom you are totally uninterested, you can state in You No Take Candle that you don't speak English.
97	[[/folder]]
98
99	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
100	* Tabletop RPG ''Land of Og'', and its more playable successor ''Og: Unearthed Edition'', limits its caveman characters to only a few words while speaking in character. Each character has a different set of words they can use, such as "You", "Rock", "Stick", "Thing", "Hairy", "Bang", "Go", and "Verisimilitude".
101	* This is played straight ''within'' the ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' universe. The Clans, in their fanatical devotion to restoring the ancient Star League, speak strictly in Star League Standard English (with some new terminology and shorthand as needed to reflect their unique culture, but ''never'' contractions). Conversely, they consider the mishmashing of languages used by the Successor States and the mediocre quality of their English as further proof of their descent into barbarism.
102	** Although according to The Powers That Be, Star League Standard English sounds like Valley Girl-speak.
103	** Also, most of the Successor States use English as a secondary language and use a different language or languages as their primary one, such as German (the Lyran Commonwealth/Lyran Alliance), French (the Federated Suns), Mandarin (the Capellan Confederation), or Swedenese (a creole language of Swedish and Japanese used in the Free Rasalhague Republic). Despite this, all the characters in the novels speak perfectly understandable English with few notable accents or grammar problems.
104	* ''TabletopGame/PoetryForNeanderthals'' forces the players to speak like this when describing something by making them use only one-syllable words.
105	* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' Orks can use a bastardized version of Low Gothic (known as English in the millennium we live in) aside from their original language which is mostly guttural yells with a glyph writing system. Their grammar is likewise bastardized.
106	[[/folder]]
107
108	[[folder:Visual Novels]]
109	* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'':
110	** [[spoiler:Machi Tobaye]] from ''Apollo Justice'': justified in that his knowledge of English is rudimentary. Him not speaking English prior to Apollo proving he knew it in court was probably equally because parsing it was inconvenient.
111	** Played straight with [[FunnyForeigner Zinc Lablanc]] from ''Investigations''.
112	--->'''Lablanc:''' Ah, you are pulling the sheep over our eyes.
113	** Averted with the entire population of Khura'in in ''Spirit of Justice''. They all speak English rather fluently, despite being a foreign nation which still actively uses its own cultural language and writing system. This is partly explained by a heavy dependence on tourism, though that doesn't necessarily explain why ''everyone'' is fluent.
114	* ''VisualNovel/AmnesiaMemories'': The Good Ending for Kent has his Japanese voice actor say, "I'm sorry for waiting" in English. Since he was the second person to arrive at their meeting place, what he meant was he was sorry for making the heroine wait. The localized version fixed the mangled English sentence.
115	* ''VisualNovel/{{Last Chance in Xollywood}}'': At times Uz the stunt coordinator seems to talk like this (and is also a {{Malaproper}}), because the universal translator isn't really good at translating her dialect. This causes her some grief, since people usually already look down on her for being from Zoberon: a backwater, war-mongering, "fifth-rate" planet.
116	* ''VisualNovel/MissingStars'' takes place in a school in Vienna. Due to its international nature, most students speak in English. Those that don't either speak German or, to a lesser degree, French. Sofiya, unfortunately, cannot speak German and is still learning English. She and her sister Natalya speak English this way.
117	[[/folder]]
118
119	[[folder:Other]]
120	* "Confucius say, he who no take candle not very bright."
121	* In [[ProfessionalWrestling Chris Jericho's]] autobiography, he mentions that while he worked in Japan, he couldn't really speak the language and a couple of the friends he made there couldn't really speak English. However, he said that because he was fluent in "broken English" that he could still communicate; asking his friends "Would you like to go to the music store with me?" wouldn't work, but saying, "Maybe you me go CD shop?" would.
122	* A Toys/{{Furby}} will talk like this when speaking English.
123	* Amazing Amanda will sometimes talk like this.
124	--> '''Amanda''': "No hugs for Amanda? Amanda sad"
125	* [[http://www.boredpanda.com/funny-chinese-translation-fails/ This list of translation fails results in this.]]
126	--> "Slip and fall down carefully!"
127	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqXqFxdcngw This video is mostly in correct English, but falls into You No Take Candle sometimes.]]
128	--> "My peepee is escaping!"
129	--> "We ran, but not able."
130	* Toki Pona, a {{minimal\|ism}}ist ConLang, has only 120 words in it, and concepts must be expressed by compounding those words, so as a result, [[BlindIdiotTranslation overly-direct translations]] can easily cause this trope. "Jan sona" translates to "teacher", but literally translates as "knowledge-person", "ilo moku" can mean fork, spoon, knife, etc. but literally translates as "food tool", and so on for basically everything that can't be described using a single word.
131	[[/folder]]
132	----

Context Main / YouNoTakeCandle