It is common in cowboy movies to have the Indians and/or Mexican bandits speaking nearly perfect English. This is a highly dishonest treatment of the language barrier. This makes an honest treatment of the language barrier all the more remarkable.

Here are three examples of what I would consider honest treatments of the language barrier in the movies:

1. The Hunt for Red October. The movie begins with the Russians speaking Russian, and then segues into having everyone, for the sake of the English-speaking audience, speaking English.
I would consider this an honest treatment of the language barrier, although at the lower end of honesty.

2. Fort Apache. I was struck by the parley between the U.S. commander (and his aides), and the Indian chief (and his aides), in which they communicated not in English, or even in the Indian’s language, but in Spanish, which the Indians had learned as an international auxiliary language, and for which the U.S. delegation had competent translation / interpretation capability. I consider this treatment of the language barrier to be at the high end of honesty.

3. In “The Pleasure Seekers”, one of the characters says, “I know everything about Spain, except Spanish.” (a situation ripe for some other character to say, “That’s why Esperanto was invented.” – the number of such missed opportunities in movies is legion.)

So, what other examples of at least minimally-honest treatments of the language barrier in the movies can we cite?

Ĉu vi vidis vakerfilmojn el la sovetia bloko? (ankaŭ konata kiel "ruĝa vakerfimoj"/ "red westerns"/ osterns). La vakeroj kaj indiĝenoj ambaŭ parolas la germanan en "La Filoj de Granda Ursino", filmo el la germana demokratia respubliko (DDR). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sons_of_Great_Be...


Se ni ignoras la kulturan alproprigon (blankuloj-aktoroj vestita kiel indiĝenojn), almenaŭ la vakerojn aspektas kiel malbonaj kaj la indiĝenojn kiel bonaj. Tio estas pli justa reprezentado ol la plejparto de usonaj vakerfilmoj.