Is “lo samaht” a possible transliteration of a phrase meaning “please” in Arabic? I would really like to know.
I assume that “kes emmak” and Kis em ick” are meant to be transliterations of the same vulgar remark in Arabic, so why the different forms?
Andrew Kaplan’s “Scorpion Betrayal”, published in 2012, is written in English but peppered with so many words and phrases in other languages, many of them transliterated from other alphabets, that it’s a veritable tower of Babel. At first glance it seems to be aiming for realism, with a plot about a planned series of terrorist attacks. On the other hand, it can’t be very realistic with a hero who is a free-lance secret agent known as Scorpion and who quickly acquires a beautiful female sidekick. Kaplan seems to be trying to make up for those basic unrealistic elements by the supposedly authentic foreign languages, but there are two problems.
Problem number one is the awkwardness caused by all the interruptions in the English text. Years ago I read a thriller by a best-selling author who inserted a short conversation in Spanish. I don’t remember what the story was about, but I do remember losing my concentration on the plot to think, “Oh, the writer wants me to know that he actually knows Spanish.” I concluded that it would have been better to just give the English version of the conversation. Who cares whether the writer knows Spanish? He just has to make it plausible that his character knows it.
The second problem is that the bits of supposed authentic speech are more distracting than convincing. The transliterations act as roadblocks in the text and as far as I can tell, the French isn’t correct.
And the beautiful female sidekick? She’s Lebanese, working as a reporter in Berlin, and Scorpion suspects that she may be a foreign agent. Why would he speak French in front of her and assume that she doesn’t understand a word? I wouldn’t trust this guy to pick up a loaf of bread at the supermarket, let alone foil a terrorist plot.