un petit cadeau du Canada

[lupinesque]

Mercia wrote:

> Lucky you, I'm really envious. I would love to see a French edition 

If you don't have a friend in a French-speaking country, you can 
always mail-order it.

> I'm intrigued by the way, thinking about how things might be 
> traslated, with what they do with Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and 
> Prongs or indeed the word nickname. Is that nom de plume or nom de 
> guerre or something in French? 

I'm happy to spout such trivia, as I'm sure the native French speakers 
here would be also.

Moony=Lunard (obvious)
Queudver=Wormtail (queue-de-ver, "worm tail")
Patmol=Padfoot  (? "Patte" means pad, but according to my dictionary, 
it's used for a rabbit's pad but not for a cat or dog's.  Still, that 
must be part of it)
Prongs=Cornedrue (corne is antler--I don't get the rest of the 
etymology) 

The verb for "give a nickname" is surnommer, and that's the word Lupin 
uses when he says that Lunard is what his friends called him.

I just happened across "Harry" in my French-English dictionary and it 
gives the French translation as "Riri," seemingly under the logic that 
that's the usual nickname for Henri, the way Harry is a nickname for 
Henry.  Very fortunately the translator doesn't change Harry's name 
<g>.

I'm only on chapter 2 (this is slow going!) but I got interested in 
the formal/familiar question and skipped ahead.  Lupin calls Harry 
"vous" throughout; Sirius calls Harry "tu" from the start.  This seems 
right for a teacher/student relationship, and heaven knows I don't get 
the subtle distinctions that cause people to choose formal or 
familiar, but it is still striking because Lupin knows Harry so well 
and Sirius doesn't know him at all.  His use of the familiar suggests 
that as far as he's concerned, he's Harry's godfather and knows him 
intimately.  I like it.

Of course, maybe Sirius is just a boor, because he calls Snape "tu" 
also, which Lupin (despite being notably on a one-way first-name basis 
with him) does not.

The creature names are intriguing too.  Grindylow is "strangulot"; 
Dementor is "Detraqueur" (detraquer means to go crazy).  Boggart is 
"epouvantard" (epouvante is terror).  Can anyone here explain the 
origin of "Moldu" for Muggle?

Aimee/Amie Z
who never noticed the play on words in "Aunt Marge's Big Mistake" 'til 
she saw it in French, nor caught the possible significance of 
dedicating PoA to "the *godmothers* of swing" 'til she noticed the 
"marraines" ("parrain" is godfather)