Homophonic translation renders a text in one language into a near-homophonic text in another language, usually with no attempt to preserve the original meaning of the text. For example, the English "sat on a wall" /ˌsæt ɒn ə ˈwɔːl/ is rendered as French "s'étonne aux Halles" [setɔn o al] (literally "gets surprised at the Paris Market"). More generally, homophonic transformation renders a text into a near-homophonic text in the same or another language: e.g., "recognize speech" could become "wreck a nice beach".

Homophonic translation is generally used humorously, as bilingual punning (macaronic language). This requires the listener or reader to understand both the surface, nonsensical translated text, as well as the source text—the surface text then sounds like source text spoken in a foreign accent.

Homophonic translation may be used to render proper nouns in a foreign language. If an attempt is made to match meaning as well as sound, it is phono-semantic matching.

Frayer Jerker (1956) is a homophonic translation of the French Frère Jacques. Other examples of homophonic translation include some works by Oulipo (1960–), Frédéric Dard, Luis van Rooten's English-French Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames (1967) (Mother Goose's Rhymes), Louis Zukofsky's Latin-English Catullus Fragmenta (1969), Ormonde de Kay's English-French N'Heures Souris Rames (1980) (Nursery Rhymes), John Hulme's German-English Morder Guss Reims: The Gustav Leberwurst Manuscript (Mother Goose's Rhymes), and David Melnick's Ancient Greek-English Men in Aida (1983) (Homer's Iliad).

An example of homophonic transformation in the same language is Howard L. Chace's "Ladle Rat Rotten Hut", written in "Anguish Languish" (English Language) and published in book form in 1956.

A British schoolboy example of Dog Latin:

Other names proposed for this genre include "allographic translation", "transphonation", or (in French) "traducson", but none of these is widely used.

Here is van Rooten's version of Humpty Dumpty: