In the Linguistic Society of America’s News Update #273, there was a link to a mini-podcast about “Sugar Sammy’s multilingual comedy”. The title on its own intrigued me, so I decided to listen and learn more about what exactly “multilingual comedy” refers to.
It turns out that Samir Khulna (aka Sugar Sammy) is a stand-up comedian from Quebec, who speaks Punjabi, Hindi, English and French. He has become known for his use of these languages in his stand-up comedy shows, specifically in his bilingual French/English one called “You’re Gonna Rire”. Throughout the interview, he discusses how, when he first came up with the idea of a bilingual show, he was constantly told by others that he would not be able to pull it off. They said that there would not be an audience for it in Quebec as Anglophone and Francophone content is consistently kept separate. Yet, he still chose to put the show together, not only for those who speak both languages, but also for those curious about the other language and culture. The show ended up becoming a success, and he described it as a “party of different cultures and different languages coming together”.
After listening to the podcast, I decided to delve into further research on multilingualism and what makes it so useful in a field like stand-up comedy. To start, I discovered that multilingual people can have different personalities in different languages. Although this may seem quite peculiar at first, specific languages can allow people to embody distinct aspects of their personality more strongly. This is thought to have to do with the cultural traditions and social etiquette associated with various languages. Hence, this can be explored in comedy to come up with unique jokes that are not repetitive, both in terms of content and delivery style. In addition, multilingual brains enable you to notice connections between different words and concepts more easily. This especially applies to puns. For example, as stated in the Euronews Culture article “The Power of Language”, to the average English speaker, "nail" and "cloud" have no correlation, but a French-English bilingual would see a connection between them as "nail' in French is “clou”, making them quite similar! Scientifically speaking, studies show that this ability to make connections is because bilinguals activate information in their brain about both languages all the time, even when just using one of them. Multilingual people are also known to potentially have a creative edge over monolinguals. This can play out in numerous ways beyond just connections between concepts and can definitely be a source of inspiration for coming up with entertaining stand-up comedy jokes!
It is safe to say that we live in an era where technology has truly revolutionised communication. We can now message people on the opposite side of the world instantly and online translators allow us to transcend language boundaries when interacting with others. Hence, being multilingual would appear to be less useful in the present day. However, despite all this technology, being multilingual does have its uses. When I asked Bing AI to come up with a bilingual joke, after a few tries it finally came up with: Why did the French baker refuse to make English muffins? Because he said they were a pain to work with! It most likely tried to do a play on the word “pain”, as it means bread in French, but I think that we’re lucky to still have a lot of bilingual speakers in our world, just like Sugar Sammy, that can come up with jokes far better and more meaningful than AI currently can!
Credit: Sugar Sammy
Works Cited
Kroll, Judith F., and Ellen Bialystok. “Understanding the Consequences of Bilingualism for Language Processing and Cognition.” Journal of Cognitive Psychology, vol. 25, no. 5, May 2013, pp. 497–514, https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2013.799170. Accessed 3 Feb. 2024.
Linguistic Society of America. “LSA Update 273.” LSA Update, 18 Dec. 2023, mailchi.mp/lsadc/lsa273?e=dc8320e81f. Accessed 3 Feb. 2024.
“Sugar Sammy’s Multilingual Comedy.” Subtitle, 13 Dec. 2023, subtitlepod.com/sugar-sammys-multilingual-comedy/?utm_source=LSA+Members&utm_campaign=8006c34567-LSA263_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fb6d963bea-8006c34567-125766482&mc_cid=8006c34567&mc_eid=dc8320e81f. Accessed 3 Feb. 2024.
Ulea, Anca. “‘The Power of Language’: 5 Ways Multilingual Brains Work Differently.” Euronews Culture, 5 Apr. 2023, www.euronews.com/culture/2023/04/05/the-power-of-language-5-ways-multilingual-brains-work-differently. Accessed 3 Feb. 2024.