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> There’s a particularly inflammatory translation of HP which causes people to swear that they won’t let their children read it. What makes it inflammatory?
by paulryanrogers 2y ago
> There’s a particularly inflammatory translation of HP which causes people to swear that they won’t let their children read it.
What makes it inflammatory?
- untech 2y agoThat it isn’t the same translation they read as children and that was used in movies. It is not a particularly high-brow debate, as HP, unlike Dostoyevsky in en-world, is read by everyone. People usually concentrate on proper names. Rowling uses a lot of “meaningful” names like Snape, Sprout or Ravenclaw, and translator have a choice of adapting them or leaving them be. Either choice leaves somebody unhappy. The same problem was with LotR a generation before. (LotR broke through the iron curtain only in 90s). When I read HP in original, I realised that the “proper” translation is also extremely bad. I don’t know what I should do when/if I have children. Either I’ll start working on my own translation during the pregnancy, or I’ll teach them English from the birth.
- Moru 2y agoWe did the English route without even thinking about it. LOtR is very strange in Swedish...
- inglor_cz 2y agoThe situation in Lord of the Rings has an added twist: many of the names are Old English, Anglo-Saxon or even Goth, and the translator faces a choice between leaving them alone and trying to translate them into Old Czech (Old Slavonic...), Old Finnish or whatever, which will nevertheless change the cultural context.
- 082349872349872 2y ago...and the twist on top of that is that JRRT has already translated the characters' actual names into anglophone cultural equivalents, eg: Maura Labingi Frodo Baggins Banazîr "Ban" Galpsi Samwise "Sam" Gamgee
- triceratops 2y agoWhat an absolute chad.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- pyuser583 2y agoI hear Star Wars is a pain to translate because of the meaningful names. “Darth Vader” was sometimes translated as “Dark Father”, but that his role as Luke’s father too obvious - a role the initial translators didn’t know existed.
- triceratops 2y agoGeorge Lucas wrote that twist for The Empire Strikes Back. The character was already named Darth Vader.
- sandworm101 2y ago>> LotR broke through the iron curtain only in 90s Strange, because my understanding is that The Hobbit was well-accepted by soviet authorities.
- tacone 2y agoProbably because it was simpler and less prone to political interpretation (a dark lord sitting in the east of the continent with a ton of humanoids that work like slaves to wage a war to the rest of the world).
- royal__ 2y agoFor instance, 'Longbottom' is translated quite literally, which can feel a bit silly.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoIt's silly in English too. Perhaps some British readers might be familiar with the name and its history/origins, but for most English readers, I suspect, it just sounds a bit silly, like he has a very tall butt.
- rendall 2y agoWashington, D.C. has the famous Foggy Bottom. Edit: America has a lot of bottoms, apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_geographical_bottoms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_geographical_bottoms Nowhere as grand as Aunt Mary's Bottom but South Dakota does have a Big Bottom.
- ecocentrik 2y ago"Talk about mud flaps My gal's got 'em."
- TRiG_Ireland 2y agoIt's silly, but it does feel like a real name. There are many such names in Britain.
- psidebot 2y agoAs someone with an English "bottom" as in bottom-lands surname, I appreciate the deliberate silliness of "Longbottom" while leaning into a very traditional British sounding name.
- d0mine 2y agoDoes it refer to a large valley? (lots of fertile ground) Perhaps, it is a punny reference to him being a pure blood.