Hello, sorry to bother you, I have a strange question. Well, it's a stupid one. But I just... well... okay, puns. Are they something that work well in Elvhen? It seems... sorta literal and I'm not sure how well I could tell terrible puns in it.
Would puns make sense in Elvhen? possibly. Would they make sense when translated into English? no.
You have to remember that puns and jokes based upon language and idioms are very much central to a language. Oftentimes, they make little or no sense when translated out of that language.
For example, if you were to state the following joke:
Why did the banana wear a tuxedo?
Because he found it apeeling.
It makes perfect sense in English, because the very peel is very close to the adjective appealing.
Now let’s translate that sentence to Elvhen:
Ahnsul smeradahl jul tar’julathe?
Ahnsul is unven enastem.
The humor is nowhere in this. In fact it would just seem weird and confusing because the word for peel in Elvhen is seia, which has no relation to the adjective/past participle enastem.
So for the real answer, yes they could work, but I probably won’t do much work on them because the puns have to be native to the language and usually don’t make sense outside of the language. That is to say, every single pun would be to be explained and a joke is ruined when you have to explain it.
Hope that helps.
