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There was a Monty Python skit called "Nudge Nudge" in which the phrase "wink wink" was used to indicate that the speaker was trying to insinuate something. He also used "nudge nudge," "know what I mean," and "say no more" in the same sense.

I am working on a translation from English into German where a character uses this to ask for alcohol without explicitly admitting that they are doing so:

Fine, just give me 'soda'. Wink, wink.

I am not sure if it makes any sense in German to translate it as "Zwinker," or if this is just an English idiom. What is the most concise way to convey this?

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nudge nudge wink wink = knick knack zwinker zwinker

This sketch was fully translated into German already 41 years ago, in 1983. It is the fifth sketch in the movie with the original English title “Monty Python's And Now for Something Completely Different”, which was released in cinemas in 1971 in the original English-language version, but only came to cinemas in German-speaking countries in 1983 in a German-language dubbed version entitled »Monty Pythons wunderbare Welt der Schwerkraft« (“Monty Python's Wonderful World of Gravity”). Because the entire film was dubbed in 1983, this sketch was of course also dubbed. This German-language version has been available on YouTube since 2006: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpnlkYC7MWU

It's German title is »Knick Knack Zwinker Zwinker«

Note, that the German texts of dubbed movies often are very free translations. The people who wrote the German texts didn't want to produce an accurate translation. They wanted to catch the mood and emotion of the original scene and then tried to find a way to express this mood and emotion to an audience of native German speakers, of whom nobody was interested in an accurate translation, but in experiencing the same emotions that English native speakers have when watching the English original version.

For that very same reason the German titles of many movies often have no similarity with the original English titles. Monty Python produced absurd content, so the movie got an absurd German title.

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    "They wanted to catch the mood and emothion of the original scene" - appearing as reasonably lip-synchronous is yet another aspect that factors into a translation for dubbing films, which might further remove the text from the original in terms of being an accurate translation.
    – O. R. Mapper
    Commented Aug 18 at 9:32
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    For completeness: the German translation was written by Arne Elsholtz, who also spoke the German voice of Eric Idle.
    – ccprog
    Commented Aug 18 at 12:10
  • I'm glad I live in a universe where Monty Python can provide a definitive answer to a linguistics related question. (And that skit was my immediate go-to thought upon reading the question title).
    – BruceWayne
    Commented Aug 19 at 18:22
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    @BruceWayne: The existence of a comedy group named Monty Python is even the reason why the currently most popular programming language was named Python. And their sketch Spam is the reason why today we use the almost 90 years old brand name of a canned meat product as a name for something that comes in masses but is unwanted.
    – Hubert Schölnast
    Commented Aug 20 at 6:02
  • As to 'spam' maybe more being considered of a low quality rather than entirely unwanted.
    – civitas
    Commented Aug 25 at 2:54
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I have definitely come across "zwinker, zwinker". Just a single "augenzwinker" could be used as an alternative. When used in text, this is sometimes enclosed in asterisks (*).

Note that both are maybe a bit more informal than "wink, wink" as they make use of the so-called Injektiv/Erikativ verb form, which is not an official conjugation and occurs primarily in comic books.

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    I think augenzwinker is just the awkward transcription of the emoji. I would never use that and have never heard it. The word "zwinkern" already implies the eyes, there's no reason to add "Augen".
    – HalvarF
    Commented Aug 18 at 16:53
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The most natural way would be to just convey it by context and by putting ”soda“.

If it was written/acted/happend in German there may be a description of the tone of voice, or the character would physically make the ”“ sign.

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    The quote gesture is a recent thing though, I don't think that was around where German is spoken back in the 1970s.
    – HalvarF
    Commented Aug 18 at 16:57
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    @HalvarF: That's ok, though: OP is not translating the Monty Python sketch, but rather some other text whose age we don't know.
    – Heinzi
    Commented Aug 18 at 18:34
  • The "quote quote" gesture was also something that came to my mind. The only objection is that it is also readily available in English, but they don't use it --- I think the humor is in the wording more than in the acting, as is often the case with Monty Python.
    – Peter - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Aug 18 at 19:17
  • Hmm... I've never seen someone german making the double-fingers airquote sign. And the german equivalent would have to be german (asymmetric) quotes :-) „ ... ‟ Work out that hand gesture :-)
    – Mischa
    Commented Aug 29 at 20:53

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