Perseus Evans

[alice_loves_cats]

No: HPFGUIDX 96068


> dorapye:
> By changing Snape to Rogue in all French language editions of HP 
> means that, if Snape really is someone called 'Perseus Evans' in 
> disguise (a disguise he apparently initiated before the age of 11), 
> then all the French and French-speaking readers are going to feel 
> hideously cheated when 'Rogue' reveals this magical anagram of his 
> name....that, er, isn't.
> 
> dorapye, who believes the Perseus Evans anagram of Severus Snape is 
> just an amusing coincidence (and possibly a diversion)

Alice:

Oh, it's not only the French. This book has been translated into many,
many languages, as we all know. And JKR does not consult with and tell
her secrets to all translators. In Hungarian, Snape became Piton, and
incidentally, so did he in Italian. And there are more examples of
name changes, exactly because names in HP usually are more than just
names.

This sort of problem is just something a translator will have to
solve. And they've done it already, with the Voldemort problem! Tom
Marvolo Riddle in Hungarian is Tom Rowle Denem, and rearranges into
Nevem Voldemort, with the w becoming two v-s. I expect other
translators have made a similar adjustment.

Apart from anything else, stopping translators from translting
"talking names" for the sake of anagrams-to-be (or whatever other
reason) is a prize way of spoiling the fun. The British publisher did
not allow the translation of the names of the new creatures in
Fantastic Beasts, thus rendering the book absolutely useless to
Hungarian readers - the Lethifold, which is such an adequate name for
the creeping carpetlike killer, is impossible to pronounce in my
mother tongue and doesn't imply anything at all. 

Alice, still a bit pissed off about the Fantastic Beasts debacle...