Translating Cockney

Translation of Shaw's "Pygmalion" is a great problem, for many languages do not have an equivalent variation/dialect to Cockney, that is, a very unprestiged way of speaking both in pronunciation and in syntax, with both geographic and social characteristics.

The translation to Portuguese, for example, had to apply for an almost artificially created variation, which indicates merely unneducated and poor people, with no reference to any region. This attempt is problematic, because the social groups with the lowest levels of education and economic power are frequently located n the most desprovidade regions of Brazil, such as the interior of the South-East and North-East.

This next video shows the same scene from  "My Fair Lady" (the musical adaptation of Shaw's "Pygmalion"), but in a 2007 Brazilian production. We can see that, even though trying to eliminate the regional aspect, which brings questions of xenophobia, there are traces of the "caipira" speech in the actor's lines.



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