Does sarcasm exist in all languages/cultures?

Americans aren’t sarcastic at all.

Just trying to get some obvious one liners out of the way.

Different cultures have different forms of sarcasm/senses of humor. I speak a few languages and I can say that I can’t use American sarcasm or humor when speaking in a different language because most of the time I get confused stares.

@mambo Which languages do you find it difficult to be sarcastic in? What do you think it is about these cultures that makes it hard to use sarcasm?

@Nimis I can be sarcastic in any of these languages. There are just different ways of putting it across. The reason it is hard is because languages vary a lot. It is hard to explain.

I think it exists in most cultures. I have a friend that has no sense of humor. She just looks at you blankly when you say something sarcastic or humorous. It’s a drag.

Sarcasm used to have a really negative connotation that I don’t think it does any more. The “original” sarcasm was meant to insult someone below the surface of the actual words. Implying the words couldn’t possibly be true so you must actually be pointing out an inadequacy.

Examples like: “It must be your winning personality” or “I’m sure you were already aware…”

Now we take sarcasm to be anything where the our meaning isn’t just the words we’re saying and it’s not necessarily insulting.

So in that sense it probably has a generational aspect.

As far as languages, I think it just comes down to there being so many cultural references in humor that it doesn’t translate very well along with every little bit having to be understood.

I remember a friend trying to explain the sum of all cardamom to me as an expression. I didn’t know what cardamom was, had no idea why you would add it together, and certainly didn’t get why it was desirable.

Because the meaning is always implied, you have to have a really good grasp of the vocabulary and be able to identify that something is “off” so you should think about what’s being said in broader terms. If any little part of that is off, then it doesn’t translate.

I agree with @mambo. I find it easier to be sarcastic in English than in any of the other languages I speak.

I myself wasn’t aware of sarcasm until I started learning English. It took me a while to learn to recognize when someone was being sarcastic but, thanks to Chandler Bing, I eventually became proficient. I’m usually only sarcastic with those closest to me and I know when to “turn it off” because it can get quite annoying. Also, I can’t stand it when people use sarcasm to be malicious to others.

I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t exist in all languages/cultures. Some people don’t understand some kinds of jokes but that is just induviduals.

Duh.

It’s just his personality.

While I was in Central America people had a hard time understanding my sarcasm. People would often just think I was being a huge dick :P

It’s especially funny to me since people from NJ are horribly sarcastic and tend to joke around with people a lot in a way most would seem to find an offensive way. IE playing pool with a friend and he makes a shot “ohhh you fucking asshole” People would always assume my fiance and me were at each others throats when we’d joke around with each other, it was quite humorous.

We met one guy down there(that we rented our house from) and started joking around a bit with him and after about 5 minutes it became clear that because of his sense of humor he had to be from Jersey as well. Turns out before moving to Belzie he used to live 30 min from where I live now.

I’ve read that humor is a universal trait. Not sure about sarcasm.

@marinelife @flo and @kimchi Do you guys speak a second (or third, etc.) language fluently? Though I actually think it’s more of a cultural thing than a language thing. Since I have no problems being sarcastic with my siblings.

@funkdaddy Interesting. I like your take on it that it might be a generational thing. While I definitely understand what you’re saying about things getting lost in translation, fluency isn’t the issue in this case though.

@jordym84 I’m totally entertained by the idea of Chandler Bing being educational!

@flo and @kimchi But I can’t recall any of my aunts, uncles or family friends being sarcastic. And a lot of them are quite witty otherwise. Which makes me think that @funkdaddy might be onto something with the generational aspect.

@uberbatman I’ve had similar things happen. (Though not as geographically dramatic.) Clicked with people who turned out to be from my hometown. It’s interesting. Says something about the nurture aspect of humour.

@mattbrowne Agreed. Though I wonder why that is?

Yeah, Korean(:

Most of people laugh at regular jokes, but most people are not comedians. In the same way, your did your family and friends get sacrasm whenever they heard it or did they have a blank expression did they think it dumb?

Before reading the answers above, I would have thought that sarcasm, to one degree or another, was universal. Do all languages at least recognize of irony?