I have a question about the movie Borat. Am I the only one who noticed that Sasha Barra Cohen's anti-Semitic character, when he speaks his 'native' tongue, is actually speaking Hebrew (with a few random smatterings of other languages thrown in)? I can't be the only one who picked up on that.
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Well I was slightly off in my prediction (but not too far):
Yeah, I think I read that on his wikipedia page.
Actually, Yiddish and Polish: My name, Borat! I like Sex!.
you're not. apparently in addition to hebrew, yiddish, and polish, azamat throws in a lot of armenian too. so i've heard.
and it's Sacha Baron Cohen.
They actually reported that he was speaking parts of Hebrew during his anti-Semetic ranting in the news over here (Canada). I wouldn't be able to tell.
I didn't notice myself, but I've read it in a number of places. Actually, I'm pretty sure Baron Cohen is himself Jewish. Wikipedia says so, anyway, and Wikipedia is never wrong. ;)
My friend Mike grew up surrounded by Russian Jews, toured the Ukraine with a klesmer band and speaks fluent Hebrew. He has been entertaining (tormenting?) us with Borat impressions for about three months, ever since he discovered the Ali G Show clips on Google Video. When he and his girlfriend saw the movie on opening night, he was flummoxed that he could understand Borat's "Kazakhi" speech perfectly well. According to Mike, the subtitles are accurate — he's just speaking Hebrew instead. Bits of Polish are thrown in, too, such as Jak się masz.
Another friend of mine has a mother who is a pediatrician, and who worked in Kazakhstan setting up children's hospitals. She says that as far as idioms and attitudes go, Baron Cohen's impression is "scarily accurate".
As others have pointed out, Borat speaks in a hodgepodge of various languages. The scenes from the movie that take place in Kazakhstan were filmed in Romania. The villagers are speaking Romanian.
That's just awesome.