I've never read Cervantes in the original, it is written in an antique Spanish I can barely follow, even with a dictionary by my side. I got about a half dozen chapters into it (the obligatory mistaken-identities farce at the inn) when I gave it up.In fact, the only book I've ever read in Spanish was Garcia Marques' "A Hundred Years of Solitude", and I don't recall any puns in it. I couldn't even find a Spanish dictionary definition of "pun" (the one in "Babelfish", "retruécano"actually means "play on words". Not quite the same thing.
I have only heard of one true pun in Spanish "de sastre national" which means "from the national tailor". It is a pun on "desastre nacional" ("national disaster"). It was a snide remark on a nation's poor choice of wardrobe. And of course, in spoken conversation, it would not be noticed because they sound exactly the same.
I have read that puns exist in Latin and ancient Greek, and that they were used as a form of humor, just as in English. Freud remarks on the use of puns in German, and how they appear in dreams as symbols, but I'm particularly interested in the use of puns in getting a laugh, as they are used in English.
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re: Probably not cultural
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