Who's up for fishing?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy says that the Babelfish is simply the most wierd thing in the universe. What do you know, it could be right.

If you're not familiar with the Hichhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (tho original BBC series, not the more recently released film), shame on you. At any rate, to understand the Babelfish one must, right off the bat, know what a fish is. I'll be assuming you all know what a fish is. If, however, you don't know what a fish is... Right, this is plain silly, isn't it? Second, one must know of Babel. The tower of Babel was a great construction of man, made to challenge the heavens themselves and raise mankind to the statute of God. God, however, would sabotage this enterprise by mixing the tongues of man, thus creating the many languages spoken around the world. Thus, a Babelfish is a creature that can understand any language in the universe. In the Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy, you stick it in your ear and immediately you'll be able to understand any alien dialect as though it were your own mother tongue.

Of course Babelfish can also mean another thing. Out of waiting for a download to complete-induced boredom, I figured I could have some fun with it. give it a chunk of text, have it translated into another language, than yet another language without going back to the original language and back to the language you typed in. If you gave it a simple sentence, the result should be approximately the same sentence you gave it. An example:

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."

Translate from English to Portuguese, from Portuguese to French, form French to German and from German to English:

"The kastanienbraune fox fast reversal on the lazy dog."

Note: Just so you don't think I ever made any typos, I copy-pasted in between languages.

Fair enough. Small sentence, few mistakes. Now give it a large, complicated piece and add in a few more translations and watch the fish wiggle. Here's a suggestion:

(Form "V for Vendetta")

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."

Give it a try.

Tongue tied farewells.

ArabianShark cannot possibly be tonge tied, because a shark's tongue is quite stiff, seeing as it is cartali... cartile... cartela... it's stiff.

(Incidentally, I meant, of course, cartilaginous)