"This was a game Alex and her mom had been playing since she was a little girl. Martha had studied Latin in college and wanted to pass the language down to her daughter. It was a dead language, she realized, but like any parent she wanted to share something she’d once found special herself with her daughter. They’d often speak in their “secret code” when her dad was home. They’d share secrets and sometimes just talk in front of him to make him suspicious of them. Alex loved Latin. It was her special connection with her mom."
— Libellus de Numeros, Jim West
Suppose Alice knows a language (either real or invented) Bob does not. Therefore if she is in a playful mood (and/or has feelings for Bob), she may deliberately speak it to him (or in front of him), knowing that it will puzzle him. May sometimes be used for comic effect: for instance, Alice may imply that she's saying something offensive about Bob, while in reality, it would be exactly the opposite (like "I love you").
Unlike Hiding Behind the Language Barrier, when the aim is to transmit information from person A to person B without person C eavesdropping, in this case, the whole purpose is to make person C intrigued and/or frustrated (person B may not be present at all). And while the former trope may be invoked in very serious circumstances (like communicating in front of an enemy), this one is usually applied for good-natured teasing between friends or family members.
It is also quite often employed in romantic circumstances, especially by the female side. Because it is a common assumption that "every woman should be a mystery for her man", and there's just something about a beautiful girl saying cryptic things in an exotic language you will probably never understand. Another common joke is when a speaker of a language considered sexy is flirtatiously asked to say something in their language, and they make a passionate declaration that turns out to mean something completely banal.
Subtrope of Cryptic Conversation and Language Barrier. May provoke a Tactful Translation. Compare Delighting in Riddles, when a character speaks in understandable language, but in a very cryptic way, for exactly the same purpose. Also compare Loves Secrecy, when a character withholds information for the sake of puzzling others. If the subject actually knows the language the teaser is speaking, this becomes Bilingual Backfire. Also compare Insulting from Behind the Language Barrier, for when this is done maliciously.
In Real Life, code languages, like Pig Latin, often served this purpose — both on elders and children's part. Another notable example is shorthand: many wives and mothers employed it to write their Christmas lists so that it wouldn't be necessary to hide them from husband and children, and some of them deliberately left them in plain sight to make everyone wonder.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Kaguya does this in the extended version of chapter 20 in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, where she admits something to Shirogane. Since it's shown from Shirogane's point of view, the dialogue is rendered as random shapes for the audience. He never finds out what it means, even when he tries to look it up in a French-to-Japanese dictionary.
Kaguya: [thinking] That wasn't French.
Comedy
- Since she started doing standup in the US, model/dancer-turned-comedienne Aiko Tanaka has gotten pretty good at using her thick Japanese accent for Asian Speekee Engrish humor. One of her jokes involves an ex-boyfriend in Los Angeles who wanted her to speak Japanese to him. At first she tells him to go hang out in Chinatown, because he wouldn't know the difference anyway, but she finally breaks down and rattles off a long sentence in Japanese. He finds it very arousing until she translates it to English, "I'm only with you for the Green Card."
Fan Works
- Burning Bridges, Building Confidence: Lila claims to be an Omniglot fluent in practically all languages. Aurore and Cole make fun of this by mocking her in English, Spanish, and German, well aware that she can't actually understand any of what they're saying.
- Control (Azumanga Daioh): In high school, Yukari would tease others in foreign languages, usually English. Most of the people only knew Japanese.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion R: During one of Asuka's rants, Shinji asks why she's so angry with him, and she replies "Because... ich liebe dich, you jerk!" ("I love you" in German). A while later Shinji tells her that he looked up what the phrase means and therefore has known for a while how she feels about him.
- Psalm of the Lark: After a guy tries to flirt with Harley using the line "Mi casa es su casa", Harley disses him in Spanish by calling him stupid. Luckily, he can't actually speak Spanish.
- Snippets of Sirin Shariac's life: In one chapter Bronya and Hua start talking in their respective native languages, Russian and Chinese, to tease Kiana about her inability to understand them after she started cursing in German.
Films — Live-Action
- Once: when the Guy asks the Girl whether she loves him or her husband, she answers in Czech: "Miluju tebe" ("It is you I love"), and archly refuses to translate it.
- Home Alone: Before they head to France without him, Linnie tells Kevin he's what the French call "les incompetents". She was probably just brushing up on basic French before their trip to Paris, as everyone else has been teasing and mocking Kevin in English, but it does confuse Kevin.
- In the 1998 movie Great Expectations, after Pip's Love Interest Estella spends a night with him, she tells him in French "Je vais aller en France demain" ("I have to go to France tomorrow"), assuming he wouldn't understand. He doesn't and is really surprised the next day when he finds out that she left him.
- Iron Man 2
- An example more on the "deliberately annoying" side is where Tony Stark is getting annoyed at new secretary Natalie Rushman, whose resume states that she knows Latin.
Tony: Do you really speak Latin?
Natalie: Fallaces sunt rerum species.note - Ivan Vanko uses Russian several times purely just to mess with Justin Hammer who he is not even remotely taking seriously. Once to wind him up after listening to a huge speech (so Hammer will feel he wasted his time talking to someone who can't speak English), once as a double meaning when he says the Hammer Drones won't do what Hammer wants but will "make salute"note , and once when he just begins talking to Hammer's threats in Russian to completely blow him off.
Ivan: Ты слишком много говоришь.
Hammer: I don’t know if you know this, but I DON'T SPEAK RUSSIAN!!!
- An example more on the "deliberately annoying" side is where Tony Stark is getting annoyed at new secretary Natalie Rushman, whose resume states that she knows Latin.
Literature
- Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian: Half-Russian, half-Japanese Alya has a crush on her classmate Masachika, but Cannot Spit It Out in Japanese, so she teases him by speaking Russian and when pressed for information she lies and makes it about the current situation (and often to Masachika's detriment). Unbeknownst to Alya, Masachika actually understands every word and is letting her believe he doesn't.
- In Astrid Lindgren's Bill Bergson (Kalle Blomquist) series, the three "White Rose" protagonists employ the Swedish language game Rövarspråket
to mock three other kids, belonging to "the Red Rose". Hiding Behind the Language Barrier is also invoked later, when they have to communicate in front of a dangerous criminal.
- In Magicae Mathematica series by Jim West, the protagonist Alex was taught Latin by her mother; they often spoke it in front of their husband/father just to tease him.
- Julian Comstock: Calyxa is from Montreal and has a habit of Insulting from Behind the Language Barrier, like commenting on her husband Adam Hazzard's naivete. At the end of the novel he's still rusty on the language despite living for several years in France, but assumes it's another jibe when she says in French how his innocence and kindness is what keeps her going.
Live-Action TV
- In an episode of Babylon 5, Marcus Cole told Susan Ivanova "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever met" in Minbari, saying that it was a Minbari greeting. In a later episode, it's revealed that Ivanova has an eidetic memory, and in that time she's actually learned a bit more Minbari, enough to know what it really means.
- On The Muppet Show, guest star Charles Aznavour is explaining to Kermit that French is the language of love. To demonstrate, he calls over Miss Piggy and romantically tells her, "Votre carter a une fuite et votre transmission s'écroule." She promptly swoons, and Charles explains to Kermit that what he said was, "Your oil filter has a leak and your transmission is sagging."note He then finishes turning her into putty into his hands by whispering in her ear the telephone number for the Paris garbage dump. (It works despite his having just told Kermit in English what he was going to say. Mademoiselle Piggy is in too much of a romantic haze to pay attention.)
- In The New Mike Hammer episode "Dead Man's Run" a woman from a Fictional Country flirts with Mike in her own language, then implies that what she just said is rather naughty. Mike repeats the phrase to another beautiful babe who's quite shocked and asks if he knows what that means. When Mike admits he doesn't, she offers to demonstrate.
- In the Stargate SG-1 episode "The Scourge", Daniel and the Chinese IOA member tease Mitchell in Mandarin. Unfortunately for them, Mitchell speaks Mandarin.
Theatre
- Blanche from A Streetcar Named Desire invokes this at one point: she asks Mitch whether he speaks French, and when he gives a negative answer, she says: "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir? Vous ne comprenez pas? Ah, quel dommage!" ("Would you like to sleep with me this evening? You don’t understand? What a tragedy!")
Web Original
- A Not Always Working story has a person use Arabic to screw with a telemarketer:
- There was a meme going around at one point featuring a woman finding out that a man is from Montreal and asking him to say something romantic to her in French. He responds, "Attention. Une porte de train bloquée cause un ralentissement de service sur la ligne orange."note
Western Animation
- Phineas and Ferb: In "Run Away Runway", Gaston le Mode says Candace is his "coup de crayon" (pencil neck). Ferb points out the translation.
Real Life
- In an issue of Inside the Actors Studio dedicated to Natalie Portman, she said a line in Hebrew (at 31:06) and then, when asked of its meaning, playfully answered: "It's for me to know and you to find out". Since then, people on the Internet have been asking about it.note Besides, she mentioned in an interview that she likes using Hebrew as a secret language.
- In this interview with a Peruvian local Señora Dominica, she teases the interviewer by saying something in Quechua and not revealing what she said, so that he would become curious and learn Quechua too.
- In a seiyuu live stream event for Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, we have bilingual Shuu Uchida and tetralingual Akina Houmoto delivering long closing statements in fluent English and Mandarin respectively with absolutely zero translation, leaving Moeka Koizumi, who happened to be seated between the two polyglots and speak no language other than Japanese, visibly confused.
- In what can only be called Tempting Fate, the production team of Love Live!, with very few of its off-screen team members speaking Mandarin, decided to put together similar live streams featuring their two Mandarin-speaking cast members Akina Houmoto and Liyuu intended for their Chinese fans. Cue the off-screen staff members being mercilessly teased by the two.
