[HPforGrownups] Translation and Cultural Issues

[Alexander]

No: HPFGUIDX 34106

  Greetings!

  DISCLAIMER.
  Some parts of this post may be considered offensive to
some Western readers. Sorry in advance, but that's the way
it is. Any harm is unintentional. Consider yourself warned.

  Numbers in square brackets (like "[1]") are footnotes.
Look below.

  Whenever mentioning "Russia" and "Russian" keep in mind
that I mean in fact Eastern Slavic region of Russia, Belarus
and Ukraine. I'm myself from Belarus, though tied culturally
with Russia (completely Russian education and Russian being
prime language).

--- Tabouli wrote to us: -----------------------------------

T> Ahaaaa! Thanks Alexander, this reminds me of a musing
T> I've long intended to raise on this list... those of you
T> who've read HP in other languages, what are the
T> translations like?

  Different. I know of three independent translations to
Russian, two of them made by enthusiasts before even anybody
heard about HP in Russia. Then there's also the "official"
translation which is a way too horrible to read (one of the
most flattering comments that I encountered about it was
"extreme language poverty of translator"...). They couldn't
even write Voldemort's name the same way in different books.
As a result, Main Villain name from second book spells like
"Volan-De-Mort" (oops), part "volan-" reminding me of
badminton only... :)
  Unofficial translations are several grades better but they
are what they are - unofficials.

  BTW, I don't remember how Voldie was translated in
official version, but unofficial is:

English:
"Tom Marvolo Riddle" -> "I am Lord Voldemort"
Russian:
"Tom D. Dwolloder Rebus" -> "Lord Sudeb Voldemort"

"Rebus" is "Riddle" in Russian - direct translation.
"Lord Sudeb Voldemort" is "Voldemort the Lord of Fates".
IMHO much more impressive... 8-P

T> How good a job did they do?How did they translate the
T> humour? (e.g. the Uranus joke wouldn't translate, I
T> imagine).

  What Uranus joke? I want to hear it, as well as the place
in the text where it's located.
  There are some jokes based on play-on-words, which surely
were very different in English origin [1], so I think it's
compensated.

T> Were there many cross-cultural gaps, like the oft-quoted
T> French confusion at the English embarrassment about love
T> and sex in HP? Any other concepts and scenes which don't
T> quite come off taken out of the English-speaking context?

  I'm not the one to make the judgement here, as I'm reading
translated American and English books with a good degree of
self-identification with the country of origin, not from
Russian point of view.
  (Of course, it's not quite correct. One cannot really hope
to understand English books like an englishman until he
lives in England for a while. Hence my reaction to the book
is not one of englishman, but rather "reflection" of
Englishman in Russian culture. There are some quite articles
on the problems of translations, probably even in English,
but it's not the group to discuss them in general).

T> I've noted quite a lot of trans-Atlantic cultural
T> differences surfacing in our analysis of the series
T> (notably emotional expressiveness (US) vs emotional
T> control (UK)), and surely there must be a lot more when
T> comparing the Anglophone cultures with the non-Anglophone
T> cultures. Alexander? Susanna? Katze?

  Again hard to say. It had never occurred to me to try to
read the books as a Russian - instead I was always trying to
read them as an englishman/american.
  Question of school discipline has already been touched
here in the newsgroup. Compared to russian schools Hogwarts
is the Chaos itself.
  It also seems that Russians perceive Wizards judgement
system much more lightheartedly than Westerners. At least it
is much more just than judicial system in my country...

  I would expect Moody to be treated with much more kindness
in Russia - he is fighting for the Idea (from the capital
letter) - that's something to touch the heart of almost any
Russian.
  (Those of you who think those days have passed by - forget
about it. Russia is currently searching for the new Idea, as
soon as she finds it, Lord save us all! ;)

  An interesting question is name-association. Most names in
Rowling books have pretty fixed values but there are still
names that have no specific value (common names) but still
might stir some associations deep on the subconscious level.
And of course those reactions will be different for people
from different countries.
  (For example, tell anybody in Russia about "Gunpowder
Treason" and he won't move a bit - the expression has zero
meaning in Russia.
  Name "Joanne" is unlikely to touch the heart of an
American but think on the reaction of a French, even if the
reaction is a subconscious one?
  Name "Ivan" will be associated with Hollywood movies and
Russian mafia for a Western reader, but it will associate
with the most famous folklore hero for a Russian, the one
that eventually wins not due to his courage, strength or
intellect, but due to his kindness.
  The list can be continued...)

  About names in JKR books: two names for sure are Harry and
Ron (Ronald). Needless to say, Ron doesn't hit a string in
Russian heart at all. Harry associates with chess at best
(Harry Kasparov being world chess champion). But surely this
names convey some meaning to an English or American reader
(even if this meaning is sub-conscious and not purposefully
intended by the author). Even more, the names will convey
entirely different meanings to English and American readers,
being the result of much different upbringings and history.
Any more ideas on this issue?

  That's all that I can invent on the spot. Perhaps if I
think more on it I will provide more information, but IMHO
that's enough for now about the books.

  But when we come to analyze the _discussions_ of the
book instead of the books themselves...

  For example, it would never occur to a Russian to sit down
and calculate just how often does a female or an african (or
whoever else) appears in the books and takes an active part
in the plot. Yep, sure I know it's a hot subject "out there"
but it surely doesn't hit any strings in my own soul (almost
all issues covered by Political Correctness rule are simply
"not perceived" here in ex-USSR) [2].

  Another issue (if only for me) is overall trend to analyze
characters actions from different points of view *while
still reading the book*. Yep, what the Hell it's for? After
all, you read the book to get pleasure from a good story,
not to compare your political views to that of author (are
you? Ah, I see... :).

  I have found myself deeply surprised by the fact that some
people find themselves *insulted* by the author. However
this is most likely my personal (not society-inducted)
reaction. After all, my favourite Russian author constantly
keeps "insulting" me in the same way as many of people have
written earlier. Still, I don't *feel* insulted the least. I
know for sure I have different views from that of author
about many issues, but is that important after all? He's
wrong of course, why be insulted? ;)

  On the other side, the question of "world coherence" does
not come into discussions here at the list entirely. Under
this term I mean that all canon facts that we have about the
World described by the author must not contradict to each
other and to simple logic. That is, lava should NOT flow
upwards ("Ah, yes, but there's a gravity anomaly there..."),
number of teachers must correspond to the number of students
("but they probably use Time Turners...") and no mistakes of
similar kind should be present in the books. Most often than
not, such mistakes require a lot of work to be explained,
and even then their explanation in turn creates another
contradictions (most often than not these will be
contradictions with book scenario line).
  And from this my very personal point of view, Rowling's
books deserve a very low mark. The Wizarding World does not
live - because it cannot live, like a man with his head
inside his stomach...

T> Tabouli.

--- SMTP server of my ISP wasn't functioning in the morning,
so Susanna/pigwidgeon had time to write to us: -------------

S> But these are minor difficulties compared to the whole
S> problem with cultural context: take e.g. the whole concept
S> of British boarding schools. Yes, we do have boarding
S> schools in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, but even if
S> you searched for a Head Girl or a Prefect with a
S> magnifying glass, you wont find one. The concept doesnt
S> exist, period.

  Yep. In Russia there is concept of "starosta", but it's
not for whole House - there are no Houses in Russian
schools, but instead each class of 20-30 pupils has it's own
"starosta". His functions are pretty the same, though.
  The word was not translated but transliterated, though
(that is, prefects remained prefects in Russian). Head Boy
and Girl, however, don't exist in Russian schools at all
(the closest analog would be "pioneer leader", but they
disappeared together with pioneers and USSR...), and their
direct translation would prove to sound real stupid (in
Russian word "head" is not used to name a position of power
for more than 100 years already) - something like "boy with
the biggest head"... ;) So they were translated as "Major
Prefects", and in fact there's no hint there are TWO of
them (as they are not gender specific)... I only knew it for
the first time when I got to the Lexicon and HP4GU that
there are in fact TWO students of highest authority in
Hogwarts.

> So, if a translator tries to find an equivalent that
> works, hed have to fall back on something more obviously
> rude like: Trelawney: Yes, my dear, thats Venus in a
> very interesting position indeed: A sixty-nine degree
> conjunction with Jupiter. Very good work, Lavender!
> Seamus: Oh, yeah, Venus in a sixty-nine position, can I
> see that too, Lavender?

  Personally, I didn't understand your example at all,
probably because I haven't seen original joke yet... :) And
that considering the fact that I was school champion in
dirty jokes... ;)
  As fas as I have understood there's wordplay by Venus
being simultaneously a planet and a... well... person. In
Russian there's quite another wordplay, based on the fact
that Russian name for Venus ("Venera") corresponds greatly
to "veneric". So Seamus asks Lavender to show him her
veneric data...

> Then there are the names: The assonance Snape- snake
> made the Italian translator name him Pitone (python)
> which, IMHO, is more unforgivable than the Imperius Curse.
> And McGonagall became McGranite. Eurgh! But thats the
> difficulty with speaking names: translate them, and you
> necessarily have to interpret them, or leave them as they
> are, and the readers probably wont get the meaning.

  Nah, there were no such attempts in Russian translations.
All names were simply transliterated by standard translation
rules. It led of course to many names being perceived
differently by ear. And of course names don't "ring bells"
in reader's mind, unless that reader has a good expertice of
European culture.
  On the other hand, I have always disliked the idea of
"talking" name, hence I like our translators approach... :)

  Interesting how spell names are translated. In Russian
translations that anglo-franco-portugalo-latin-whatever-else
mix was replaced by russo-latin mix, which definitely sounds
much more weird (Russian is not fit to be used together with
Latin, after all), but probably better than official
translation which transliterates spell names just like
personal and geographical names.

  "Knockturn Alley" (allusion with "nocturn" in English) was
translated differently in official and unofficial versions.
In both cases meaning is lost, however. Official gives us
"Dead-End Alley", while unofficial gives us "Alley of
Darkness". Pity but I failed to invent something with same
double-meaning myself.

  "Firebolt" is translated as "Vspoloh" (which has several
meanings including "flash" and "lightning") and this has an
interesting allusion to JRRT (Gandalf's horse has the same
name in many LOTR translations). Definitely an example of an
excellent translation IMHO.

  Interesting, that unofficial version also translates
"Privet Drive" into Russian, though I'm not sure as if it
has any meaning in English. Usually geographical names that
have additional meaning are translated by that meaning and
only then "englified" back to sound like an English name. On
the other hand, if there's no additional meaning, tradition
is that the name is simply transliterated.

--- FOOTNOTES ----------------------------------------------

[1]. PoA, Chapter 5 "Dementor". Draco, entering the HRH
compartment in Hogwarts Express, makes fun "perverting"
Harry's and Ron's family names: "Potter" and "Visli" (in
Russian translation) become "Potniy" and "Visliy" ("Sweaty"
and... well... don't even know how to translate that... not
that it's unprintable, far from it, just lack English
vocabulary to do that).

[2]. Site http://rusf.ru/lukian/english/ contains Sergey
Lukyanenko novel "Labirinth of Reflections" translated into
English by some Russian emigrant living in US. It has a good
disclaimer which is worth reading to understand Russian
views on PC (Political Correctness) issue, even if you don't
like cyberpunk style in general.

------------------------------------------------------------

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

    - You  must  make  good  out  of  evil, because you have
      nothing  else  to  do  it  from.  If  Winged  consider
      themselves  good, then make them to BE good! Make them
      to  talk  about the Light, so they believe in it! Make
      them not only call themselves good and nice! Make them
      to actually become such!
    - How  can  I  do it? I'm just a boy, even if I have the
      True sword!
    - I would love to see a boy who can agree that he's just
      a boy...
        Sun Kitten.
        (Sergey Lukyanenko, "The Boy and the Darkness").