The Many Tongues of HP

[grey_wolf_c]

Charis Julia wrote:
> One thing I'd like to know – and maybe someone here can help me? -- 
> is how the various foreign translators coped with things like the 
> verses in the books. You know, like the Sorting Hat's songs or the 
> one by the Merpeople. `Cos you see, to be absolutely honest, the 
> Greek translation does not. Cope. Not much. In fact I'd say it's 
> utterly failed. IMHO, that is to say naturally :--). But, well, take 
> the riddle of the Sphinx for example. I don't like the translation. 
> The rhyming is dubious, the rhythm wobbly and (most importantly) the 
> clues non—existent. They were crammed into the two first verses while 
> the rest is merely decorative, (very bad) poetry. After reading that 
> passage I was left with the impression that Harry must be, not just 
> plain bright, but rather a phenomenal * mind—reader* for solving that 
> one. And I wouldn't mind half so much if I hadn't come up with a * 
> much* better one myself in a matter of five minutes while * brushing 
> my teeth* one night. I mean it's pathetic. IMHO. Always IMHO.

I can help you... although only on the Spanish Editions, which I have 
read. IMO, the rhymes and songs have been weell translated. Better, in 
fact, than what I've comed to expect of fantasy books. There are two 
ways to translate a poem: keep the info, and forfait the rhymes, or 
keep the rhymes and forfeit the info. It is almost impossible (although 
depends heavily on the words used) to keep both the info and the 
rhymes/tempo/rythem of a poetry when translating. And a good translator 
doesn't even try: in a pick, we are told (yes, I've been a translator 
myself) to skip the rhymes and keep the information.

The Spanish editions, however, manage at times to keep both. They kept 
the rhymes, for example, in the Sphynx's riddle (I assume they just 
looked up a real, Spanish riddle with the same answer, although I don't 
know for sure, since I don't know the *English* original riddle). I 
used to do the same: in fact, I've got a library full of books with 
riddles, jokes and such for occasions where I need them. The important 
thing is that it does *not* look out of place, which means that the 
tranlator did a good job.

> Once I leant my British copy of PS to a friend. The next day she 
> called me up. "Hello," she said. "The Quidditch balls in English, 
> they're called Qyaffle, Bludger and Snitch, huh?" "Yeah," I 
> said. "Why, how are they translated into Greek?"
> 
> Pause.
> 
> Then "As the the red, the black and the gold balls."
> 
> Huh?

Just for the record, the Spanish editions keeps the original names for 
the balls. In fact, it keeps the original names for all the things 
except those who's name is a verb which describes it's function, in 
which case it has been tranlated (put-outer -> "apagador"; howler -> 
"aullador"; remember-all -> "recordadora"), which I approve of (as a 
side note, some of those objects changed back to their english names in 
later books, and they're responsible of the only translations errors of 
the books. Pretty minor issues, really).

However, there is one thing that you have to keep in mind. It is easy 
to keep those names when tranlating into another language that uses the 
latin alphabet. All you get is boys twisting their mouths around 
letters that make sense in their language, arranged strangely. They may 
say them differently, but they can still read them. This is nowhere as 
easy when translating into a language (like Greek) that uses another 
alphabet. 

To translate those names you'd have to go for a phonetic tranlation, 
which can be very difficult with words that you're not sure you can 
pronounce with sounds of your own langauge. Give a try, for example, at 
phonetically transcribing this Spanish old-timer: "El perro de San 
Roque no tiene rabo porque Ramón Rodriguez se lo ha robado". If you're 
English speaking, you cannot phonetically translate it, since you 
simply haven't a "rr" sound, nor even an aproximate (and you've got 6 
in the phrase). Even simpler: try phonetically transcribing "España" or 
even "Jarama". The sounds "ñ" and "j" are not in English language. If 
the books had been in Spanish, and one of the balls had been named 
"jaraña" I don't know what I would have done to tranlate it into 
English. I don't know Greek, but I can imagine that faced with the 
task, I would have also eliminated the names (although I would have 
gone for something more imaginative, I admit).

> And there's a lot more of that. Moaning Myrtle is "Mirtia (a Greek 
> girl's name) who cries" (does that even properly qualify as a name?) 
> and the Whomping Willow becomes the "Willow that hits". The final 
> blow for me came when I discovered the translation for the Marauder's 
> Map: The "Magic Map". Similarly, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes becomes 
> the "Magic Tricks of the Weasleys". 

I have to point out that "Moaning" means "who moans" (i.e. cries) and 
"Whomping" means "who womps" (i.e. hits). They're descritptive, and 
must be translated. If you keep "Moaning Myrtle" in other langauages, 
the entire meaning is lost, and that must never happen. In Spanish, 
it's "Myrtle la Llorona", already hard to pronounce. Since Greek 
requires changing the letters, I aplaud that they change the name to 
something similar but pronouncable by Greek children.

I agree that the Maurader's map should have included a mention to 
marauders, but "Magic Tricks of the Weasleys" looks quite all right, 
form a translation point of view.
 
> The translation as a whole is supposed to be quite good, thought as I 
> said, I wouldn't know, I haven't read it. But this sloppy handling of 
> names and rhymes really does get to me. After all, these are the hard 
> bits. These are the bits where a good translator would show their 
> worth.

You're being excessively critical, and I guess you haven't had a real 
try at translating a book. Rhymes are specially difficult, since 
normally they have no soultion: as I've said, you cannot hope to 
translate both the information and the rhymes at the same time. The 
examples of the names you have given are correct, unimaginative maybe, 
but correct. The only two weak spots are the map's name and the riddle, 
which could have been handled better. That alone doesn't make a 
translation horrible. Not increadibly good, but far from bad.
 
> Charis Julia, who doesn't even want to get * started* on Tom Riddle, 
> who's name, yes, Tom Riddle and * not* Anton Hert and tricky passages 
> such as the Uranus joke. How did other translator's manage here?

Tom Ryddle (yes, the "y" is intentional) needs to have his name 
changed, or else the final showdown in the CoS makes no sense. Remember 
that "I am Lord Voldemort" in *every* language must be a play on words 
of Tom Marvolo Riddle. In Spanish: "Yo soy Lord Voldmort" goes to "Tom 
Sorvolo Ryddle". Not a big change, and the only thing is that you don't 
have the foreshadowing of having his surname mean riddle. But since we 
don't get to know his middle name until the end, I guess it's something 
we couldn't have guessed anyway. The Uranus joke is not that funny in 
the original anyway, and so, when translated into other languages still 
makes little sense why Ron would say it. It's been discussed before, 
though, so check the archives. As far as I can see, the translators 
have done a good job. I don't think I would have done a better one. in 
fact, in the case of Tom Riddle, I would've gone for the admission of 
defeat: putting an end-of-page note explaining why I couldn't make it 
fit. I applaud the Spanish translator that managed it.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf