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Vol/54 No/1 2015 FEBRUARY/MARCH The Linguist 23 FEATURES In one joke, he reimagines James Bond as a German: there would be a lot of paperwork and the films would be short because he would be so efficient. It plays to well-known stereotypes; audiences get it whether he's performing in German or English. Then he considers an East German Bond who doesn't need a licence to kill, just to spy on his neighbour. In German, it gets a big laugh, but the joke falls flat in English. Once you have to explain a joke, it doesn't work. Danziger also finds it easier to do accents in German, which helps to set the scene for his socio-political material. 'When I do jokes about East Germany in German, I can do the special Saxon accent, which everybody knows, but that would never work in English,' he says. Is German a funny language? In 2006, the British comic Stewart Lee wrote an article defending Germans against the prevalent British view that they have no sense of humour. Essentially, he argued that the structure of the language makes humour more difficult. The piece was criticised by academics for its pseudo-linguistic analysis and 'ethnic prejudice', yet the German comics I speak to repeat many of Lee's claims, based on their own experience of doing stand-up in the two languages. One of the suggestions is that punchlines don't work as well in German because the verb, rather than the object, is at the end of the sentence. 'In English, the last word of the sentence will be the punchline, while in German you will be at the punchline and then have the verb coming after that,' affirms Krammerer. 'The joke still works but it just slightly skews the timing.' It is clearly something the comics discuss regularly. Those I speak to believe that English lends itself particularly well to the direct, spoken-word humour of stand-up. 'You need less syllables to say the same thing in English, which is a very basic thing, but the shorter you can make your sentence the better it is, usually, for your timing,' says Krammerer. 'And there are more words in the English language that have a broad range of meaning, which makes it easier to create some ambiguity, and that often helps the joke.' He believes that English is 'more forgiving for spoken-word comedy', and Danziger agrees: 'In German, you have to set the words in the right position, but no one speaks very proper English. It's a very tolerant language.' Bilingual punning With audiences at the city's anglophone comedy nights speaking both languages, a whole new area of bilingual punning opens up. Or so it might seem. But I am informed the clever wordplay of comics Caroline Clifford and Paul Salamone, founders of 'We are not Gemüsed', is a rare success in that area. Other attempts have been dismal failures. When a group of US, UK and German comics brought their show to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2013, they called it 'The Wurst Käse Scenario', punning on the English 'worst case' and German Wurst Käse ('sausage cheese'). No one got it. 'It's important not to do jokes just for the locals if you want to perform internationally,' says Danziger. 'If you want to do this professionally, you want to do it in English,' adds German-Pakistani comic Toby Arsalan, who grew up in South Africa and now lives in Berlin. 'English-speaking comedy is massive.' Personal choice Whether you believe that the structure of a language can make it more or less funny, it seems intuitive that culture and comedic traditions do come into play here. Ultimately, however, a stand-up's language of choice will be personal. Arsalan bores himself when he speaks German: 'I'm not as creative, I'm not as funny,' he says. While Pfäfflin's laid-back laconic style is, he says, more suited to English. 'For me, American English is very relaxed and in the back of the throat. I can sing better and use these vowels to express emotion. If I switch to German, it's more consonant based and fast – the sounds form your mouth more tightly.' Danziger, on the other hand, is more comfortable working in different languages, tweaking his material as appropriate. He is now keen to try stand-up in Swedish because 'there is a good comedy scene in Sweden and in Scandinavia generally'. And perhaps that – rather than any quirks of language – is key. 'In English, people applaud with warmth because it's an ethical joke. In German, they are taken aback' OPEN MIC: Vincent Pfäfflin performs (above left); and Sameheads bar, where 'We are not Gemüsed' is held (above) IMAGES: © ROL GOMEZ