Location of Durmstrang and Durmstrang musings

[Alexander]

No: HPFGUIDX 33778

  Greetings!

> mlfrasher wrote to us:

mac> If Krum was a Bulgarian, why go to school way up North?  No schools in the
mac> East?  I would think language might be a problem, as Bulgarian is the closest 
mac> language cousin to Russian.  (His 'accent', although hard to tell in a 
mac> paraphrased english text, and it sounds germanic.  I know there are others on 
mac> this list who read HP in other languages, so I wonder how they translate an 
mac> accent in Russian.  Alexander?  :)

  Hard to tell anything here. My parents (both) were in
Bulgaria on holidays, but father hasn't read GoF yet, only
me (mother doesn't like fantasy in general, so no chance
here :).

  There's little to say about Krum's accent. I'm myself not
a linguist under any approximation, hence I'll simply dump
all examples of his accent here and wait for someone else to
analyse them.

  1. Yuleball.

Krum trying to spell "Hermione".
  correct Russian version: [Ermiona]
  Krum's versions: [Yermioun] (most close to _English_ :)
                   [Ermi-ou-nina] (with delays)
                   [Ermi-o-nina] (with delays)
  (Note that "nina" is a common Eastern girl name, while
"yermi" or "ermi" sound real foreign for the eastern ear).

  2. Second Task.

Soft "d" replaced by soft "t": "vodianoy" -> "votianoy".
  (here "ia" stands for a single sound)

Hermione name spelled: [Ermi-o-nini] (with delays)

  3. After Third Task

Hermione name spelled: [Ermionina]
  (This is the final version, Krum spells her name in this
fashion until the end of the book. The only error is "ni" in
the middle - perhaps inserted to show him being used to
eastern names?)

  (Note that English "r" and Russian "r" are two _different_
things. On English lessons at schools it takes a lot of
time to teach children pronounce English "r" correctly).

-----

  The rest of Krum's language is clear Russian. Even the
most complex words are spelled correctly (even those not
familiar to anybody west of Russia).

  On the other hand, accents are quite underrepresented in
the Russian translations. Hagrid's speech is absolutely
correct in spelling, though it has simplified sentence
composition (when I have first seen Hagrid's speech examples
in English I was surprised!). Fleur and Madame Maxime are
definitely French with strong accent. Karkaroff's language
is clear - but it should be, so no trouble here.

Sincerely yours,
Alexander Lomski,
(Gryffindor/Slytherin crossbreed),
always happy to throw weird ideas into the community.