[HPforGrownups] Translation and Cultural Issues (long)

[Alexander]

No: HPFGUIDX 34167

  Greetings!

  Answering all current messages along the "Translation"
subject.

--- John Walton wrote: -------------------------------------

JW> None taken from this transAtlantic person, who took one
JW> year of Russian at university but got put off by the
JW> literary requirements after reading Anna Karenina.
JW> (Aside: there is no coincidence that this novel has the
JW> initials AK. Plot summary: Tolstoy whinges about the
JW> city/European influence and praises the country/Russia.
JW> Some woman throws herself under a train, too.)

  [OT] What? You didn't like "Anna Karenina"? Russian analog
of the "Pride and Prejudice" so popular within this group?
  (Personally I HATE P&P, not because I don't like the movie
in general, but because my mother is upgrading her English,
she bought untranslated P&P and is watching it EVERY DAY!).

JW> My own (ghastly) attempts at Russian below come with
JW> similar disclaimers to Alexander's...

JW> Okay. [Warning for the squeamish: skip this paragraph.]
JW> For this joke to work you have to understand that the
JW> anus is part of the bottom/butt/bum/arse. "Uranus" is
JW> pronounced very similarly to "Your anus". So, "can I see
JW> Uranus, Lavender?" is *very* much a schoolboy joke.

  Ah, thanks...

JW> What I mean to say is that TRR can personally compare
JW> Wizarding justice with a much more draconian system than
JW> can the Typical Western Reader (TWR).

  That's my point exactly, though basing on recent events
I'm starting having doubts that Russian judicial system is
more severe than, say, US one... :)

JW> Alexander, would the TRR find names like Harry,
JW> Hermione, Ron, Neville, etc. more unusual than the TWR?
JW> I'm thinking particularly because of the restrictive
JW> Soviet "advice" on child-naming discouraging names with
JW> religious connotations in favor of names like Nadezhda
JW> (Hope), Tatiana (forgotten the
JW> translation...?strength?), Ivan (reason above), Viktor
JW> (Victor), etc. I'm sure you can give us more examples of
JW> these.

  Harry, Ron and Neville sound strictly English. Hermione is
as weird-sounding for Russian as it's for Western.
  About Russian names: there's classic trio (Vera, Nadezhda,
Lubov'), which translate into (Faith, Hope, Love). All three
are female names.
  Tatiana and Viktor have no meaning in Russian, both names
have greek origins.

JW> I remember, back when I was doing Russian, how amused I
JW> was at the Russian "translations" -- more like
JW> "transliterations" -- of character names from the
JW> official translation.

  Cross-cultural barrier is too strong between Russia and
England. To translate _names_ one has to translate the whole
book as if it took place in Russia and with primary heroes
being Russians. If you only translate the names you'll get a
very weird (and unbelievable) England populated by Ivans and
Igors...
  Unfortunately, translators capable of such a job usually
write their own books. In the whole history of Russian
translations there were only few such works:
  Carrol's "Alice in Wonderland" (translation took less than
100 years in total... ;)
  "Wizard of Oz" (became "Wizard of Emerald City");
  "Pinoccio" (became "Buratino");
  Yep, that's all, though IMHO there was one more book...
You've got my point.

JW> Harry Potter -- Gerry Potter
JW> Ron Weasley -- Ron Visli (pron. vee-zlee not vih-slih)

  Not quite correct here. Not [Gerry] but [Garry], and Visli
is pronounced as [Visli] (if there was "z" I would write it
that way - in Russian "s" is not converted into "z" under
any circumstances).

JW> i.e. the official translater did not look for the
JW> Russian version of "weasel" and play with that.

  There would be a BIG ambiguity involved. Weasel, being
translated as "laska" into Russian, means both an animal and
"caress"/"petting", latter being much more obvious... I'm
not sure JKR meant it _that_ way! :)

JW> --John, Myezhdunarodny Chelovyek [of Mystery...help,
JW> Alexander, I've forgotten how to say "of mystery"...]

  Mezhdunarodniy Tainstvenniy Chelovek?
  Mezhdunarodniy Chelovek Tayn?

--- Tabouli wrote: -----------------------------------------

T> How'd they go with the Sorting Hat and Hogwarts school
T> songs? Rhyming poetry is another challenge for the
T> translator.

  Of course they wrote their own poetry along the same lines
- it's standard translation method. Very rarely (and only in
extremely elite translations) they also include original
poem in the footnote (HP series have none, pity).

T> Couldn't the Russian translator have asked JKR which of
T> the sound and meaning of "Weasley" was the more
T> important?

  Look above. Personally I don't think "weasel" allegory is
that important (unless we learn that some of them is animagi
turning into a weasel, of course :).

--- Cat Lady wrote: ----------------------------------------

CL> Ouch! I knew that there is this THING about H and G in
CL> Russian (which John has explained phonetically) but it
CL> never before occured to me that you wouldn't notice that
CL> Harry (as in Potter, or Truman) is a different name than
CL> Gary (as in Kasparov).

  Both are identical in Russian. :)

CL> Gary is quite a common given name in US, as far as I
CL> know not derived from Russian but from a nickname of
CL> Gareth, one of the Knights of King Arthur's Round Table.

  This confusion comes from the fact that Kasparov's name is
an English-like (it was a fashion several decades ago to
give children Western names). How it translates into English
is entirely different story (until I changed my passport, my
name was officially translated into English as "Aliaksandr")
[horrified look on the face].
  Hope you've got my point?

CL> (Speaking of which, what's your nickname? Alex, Lexie,
CL> Sandy, Sasha?)

  Sasha, or Alex for you westerners (in Russian Alex is
short version of Alexey, not Alexander). :)
  For those who are really interested...
  Alexander, Sasha, Shurick, Shura, Sashka, Sashok, Sashik,
Shurka are what come to mind immediately. And mind it that
my name is not the most "modifiable"... ;)
  Of these, only Sasha and Shura can be used by those not
close friends or relatives without causing embarassment. 8)

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

    Save hedgehogs! Drive off-road!
        Greenpeace.