International Homewrecking Translators
Oct 31st, 2008 by Micah Tillman | 3 Comments |
The Wife is currently reading Harry Potter in French, and just ran across a strange word: Poudlard.
Evidently, that’s how the translator decided to render “Hogwarts.”
So, imagine some French kid coming to England for the First International (Harry Potter Kids’ Conference) to deliver a paper on the architecture of Poudlard.
He is met with nothing but ???’s.
Reminded me of the time I was reading Lord of the Rings in French, and ran across a character named Samsagasse.
Evidently, the translator thought that since Sam’s name was “Samwise,” and “sagasse” is the French for “wise,” that “Samwise” should be translated “Samsagasse.”
Arg!
This was the same translation in which a sentence about the Elves passing (into the West) was translated to say that the Elves were dying.
Double arg!
Anyway, so my claim is that when a translator translates the names in a book, she or he makes it more difficult for the international community of fans of the book to cohere. She or he makes communication between them more difficult.
She or he practically destroys the community. That’s right. I said it.
It’s like homewrecking on the international scale.
lol :D
Not to laugh at your distress, of course…. :)
I didn’t know that you knew French
Oh Translators, you let everybody down…you let everybody down…