Harry Potter in translation
Encyclopedia
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
series of fantasy novels by J. K. Rowling
J. K. Rowling
Joanne "Jo" Rowling, OBE , better known as J. K. Rowling, is the British author of the Harry Potter fantasy series...
have become some of the most widely-read works of children's literature
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
in history, with readers of all ages and in many countries. In April 2011 worldwide sales of Harry Potter books were estimated to be about 450 million copies, and the books have been translated from the original English into at least 67 other languages. However, there are two separate Portuguese translations (one into European Portuguese
European Portuguese
European Portuguese refers to the variety of Portuguese spoken in continental Portugal, as well as the Azores and Madeira islands...
and one into Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....
) as well as two separate Chinese translations (one using Traditional Chinese characters and the other Simplified Chinese characters). Therefore, editions of the books have been published in at least 70 distinct language versions. (This does not include the separate American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
edition, nor the Valencian
Valencian
Valencian is the traditional and official name of the Catalan language in the Valencian Community. There are dialectical differences from standard Catalan, and under the Valencian Statute of Autonomy, the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua has been established as its regulator...
adaptation of the Catalan edition, nor the separate Serbian edition published in the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script for the Serbian language, developed in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two standard modern alphabets used to write the Serbian language, the other being Latin...
.)
Translation process
For an authorised translation, the publisher must first negotiate and sign a contract with the authors' agents, the Christopher Little Literary Agency. A list of authorised publishers can be read on J. K. Rowling’s website. The publishers select translators locally.Translators were not granted access to the books before their official release date in English; hence, translation could start only after the English editions had been published, creating a lag of several months before the translations were made available. This necessary delay has boosted the sales of English language editions of the books to impatient fans, in countries where English is not the first language. Such was the clamour to read the fifth book that its English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
edition became the first English-language book ever to top the bookseller list in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. In Italy, impatient Potter fans organised "Operation Feather", deluging the publisher Salani with feathers (reminiscent of Hogwarts' messenger owls) to demand expedited publication for the Italian translation of the seventh and final book in the series. This has also resulted in unauthorised translations and fake versions of the books appearing in many countries.
The high profile and demand for a high-quality local translation means that a great deal of care is often taken in the task. In some countries such as Italy, the first book was revised by the publishers and issued in an updated edition in response to readers who complained about the quality of the first translation. In countries such as China and Portugal, the translation is conducted by a group of translators working together to save time. Some of the translators hired to work on the books were quite well known before their work on Harry Potter, such as Viktor Golyshev
Viktor Golyshev
Viktor Golyshev is a well-known English-to-Russian translator. His translations include Light in August, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, All the King's Men, Theophilus North, 1984, Other Voices, Other Rooms, Set This House on Fire, Pulp, and others...
, who oversaw the Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
translation of the series' fifth book. Golyshev was previously best known for translating William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
and George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
, and was known to snub the Harry Potter books in interviews and refer to them as inferior literature. The Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
translation of books two to five was undertaken by Sevin Okyay
Sevin Okyay
Sevin Okyay is a Turkish literary critic, journalist, author, regular columnist and a prolific translator. Sevin had been a radio host and a teacher as well....
, a popular literary critic and cultural commentator.
List of translations by language
The original British EnglishBritish English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
versions of the book were published in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
by Bloomsbury. There is no complete official list of authorised translations currently available. Editions exist in the following languages (including the original):
| Language | Country | Publisher(s) and distributor(s) | Translator(s) | Title(s) | |
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| 1. | Afrikaans Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape... |
South Africa South Africa The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans... |
Human & Rousseau (pty) Ltd. |
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| 2. | Albanian Albanian language Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece... |
Albania Albania Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea... |
Publishing House Dituria | Amik Kasoruho |
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| 3. | Arabic Arabic language Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book... |
Arab world Arab world The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the... |
Nahdet Misr | Muhammad Ibrahim |
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| 4. | Asturian Asturian language Asturian is a Romance language of the West Iberian group, Astur-Leonese Subgroup, spoken in the Spanish Region of Asturias by the Asturian people... |
Spain Spain Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula... (Asturias Asturias The Principality of Asturias is an autonomous community of the Kingdom of Spain, coextensive with the former Kingdom of Asturias in the Middle Ages... ) |
Trabe | Xesús González Rato |
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| 5. | Basque Basque language Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories... |
Spain Spain Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula... (Basque Country) |
Elkarlanean | Iñaki Mendiguren (I-VII) |
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| 6. | Bengali Bengali language Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script... |
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Ankur Prakashani |
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| 7. | Bosnian Bosnian language Bosnian is a South Slavic language, spoken by Bosniaks. As a standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect, it is one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina.... |
Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the... |
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| 8. | Bulgarian Bulgarian language Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the... |
Bulgaria Bulgaria Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east... |
Egmont Bulgaria |
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| 9. | Catalan Catalan language Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island... |
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Editorial Empúries; Valencian Valencian Valencian is the traditional and official name of the Catalan language in the Valencian Community. There are dialectical differences from standard Catalan, and under the Valencian Statute of Autonomy, the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua has been established as its regulator... adaptation published by Tàndem Edicions, S.L. |
Valencian Valencian is the traditional and official name of the Catalan language in the Valencian Community. There are dialectical differences from standard Catalan, and under the Valencian Statute of Autonomy, the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua has been established as its regulator... adaptation of Escorihuela's translation by Salvador Company, (I-II)] |
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| 10. | Chinese Chinese language The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages... |
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| 11. | Croatian Croatian language Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries... |
Croatia Croatia Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ... |
Algoritam |
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| 12. | Czech Czech language Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century... |
Czech Republic Czech Republic The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest.... |
Albatros |
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| 13. | Danish Danish language Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language... |
Denmark Denmark Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark... |
Gyldendal | Hanna Lützen |
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| 14. | Dutch Dutch language Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second... |
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Standaard / Uitgeverij De Harmonie | Wiebe Buddingh' |
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| 15. | English English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria... |
(Original editions; not translations)
(edited for American readers) |
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| 16. | Estonian Estonian language Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities... |
Estonia Estonia Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies... |
Varrak Publishers |
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| 17. | Faroese Faroese language Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere... |
Faroe Islands Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Scotland and Iceland. The Faroe Islands are a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark proper and Greenland... |
Bokadeild Foroya Laerarafelags |
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| 18. | Finnish Finnish language Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a... |
Finland Finland Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside... |
Tammi Tammi (publishing company) Tammi is a Finnish publishing company established in 1943 by an initiative of Väinö Tanner, leader of the Social Democratic Party of Finland. In 1996, the company was bought by the Bonnier Group, and it is currently the third largest book publisher in Finland.... |
Jaana Kapari |
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| 19. | French French language French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts... |
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Éditions Gallimard Éditions Gallimard Éditions Gallimard is one of the leading French publishers of books. The Guardian has described it as having "the best backlist in the world". In 2003 it and its subsidiaries published 1418 titles.... |
Jean-François Ménard (plus the school books) |
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| 20. | West Frisian West Frisian language West Frisian is a language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands. West Frisian is the name by which this language is usually known outside the Netherlands, to distinguish it from the closely related Frisian languages of Saterland Frisian and North Frisian,... |
Netherlands Netherlands The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders... |
Uitgeverij Bornmeer | Jetske Bilker |
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| 21. | Galician Galician language Galician is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community located in northwestern Spain, where it is co-official with Castilian Spanish, as well as in border zones of the neighbouring territories of Asturias and Castile and León.Modern Galician and... |
Spain Spain Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula... |
Editorial Galaxia |
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| 22. | Georgian Georgian language Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad... |
Georgia Georgia (country) Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of... |
Bakur Sulakauri Publishing |
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| 23. | German German language German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union.... |
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Carlsen Verlag Carlsen Verlag Carlsen Verlag is a subsidiary of the homonymous Danish publishing house which in turn belongs to the Swedish media company Bonnier. The branch was founded on 25 April 1953 in Hamburg. The publisher's program focuses on books for children Carlsen Verlag is a subsidiary of the homonymous Danish... |
Klaus Fritz |
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| 24. | Low German Low German Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands... |
Germany Germany Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate... |
Verlag Michael Jung |
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| 25. | Modern Greek Modern Greek Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic... |
Greece Greece Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe.... |
Psichogios Publications |
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| 26. | Ancient Greek Greek language Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;... |
Bloomsbury | Andrew Wilson (I) |
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| 27. | Greenlandic | Greenland Greenland Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for... |
Atuakkiorfik Greenland Publishers | Stephen Hammeken |
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| 28. | Gujarati Gujarati language Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages... |
India India India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world... |
Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd is a publishing house in Bhopal, India. It is well known for the translation of the "Harry Potter" novels into Hindi. It was established in 1999.... |
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| 29. | Hebrew Hebrew language Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such... |
Israel Israel The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea... |
Miskal Ltd. (Yedioth Ahronoth Yedioth Ahronoth Yedioth Ahronoth is a daily newspaper published in Tel Aviv, Israel. Since the 1970s, it has been the most widely circulated paper in Israel. In a TGI survey comparing the last half of 2009 with the same period in 2008, Yedioth Ahronoth retained the title of most widely read newspaper in Israel... and Sifrey Hemed) / Books in the Attic Ltd. |
Gili Bar-Hillel Gili Bar-Hillel Gili Bar-Hillel Semo is an English-Hebrew translator from Israel, best known for translating the Harry Potter series into Hebrew.-Biography:... |
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| 30. | Hindi Hindi Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi... |
India India India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world... |
Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd is a publishing house in Bhopal, India. It is well known for the translation of the "Harry Potter" novels into Hindi. It was established in 1999.... |
Sudhir Dixit (I-VII) |
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| 31. | Hungarian Hungarian language Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe.... |
Hungary Hungary Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The... |
Animus Publishing | Tóth Tamás Boldizsár |
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| 32. | Icelandic Icelandic language Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the... |
Iceland Iceland Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population... |
Bjartur |
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| 33. | Indonesian Indonesian language Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries.... |
Indonesia Indonesia Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an... |
Penerbit PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama | Listiana Srisanti (I-V) |
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| 34. | Irish Irish language Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of... |
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Bloomsbury | Máire Nic Mhaoláin (I) |
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| 35. | Italian Italian language Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia... |
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Adriano Salani Editore |
Illustrated by Serena Riglietti |
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| 36. | Japanese Japanese language is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an... |
Japan Japan Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south... |
Say-zan-sha Publications Ltd. |
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| 37. | Khmer Khmer language Khmer , or Cambodian, is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. It is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language , with speakers in the tens of millions. Khmer has been considerably influenced by Sanskrit and Pali, especially in the royal and religious... |
Cambodia Cambodia Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia... |
University of Cambodia Press | Un Tim |
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| 38. | Korean Korean language Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing... |
South Korea South Korea The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south... |
Moonhak Soochup Publishing Co. |
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| 39. | Latin Latin Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and... |
Bloomsbury | Peter Needham (I-II) |
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| 40. | Latvian Latvian language Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language... |
Latvia Latvia Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden... |
Jumava |
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| 41. | Lithuanian Lithuanian language Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they... |
Lithuania Lithuania Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark... |
Alma Littera Company Limited | Zita Marienė |
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| 42. | Luxembourgish Luxembourgish language Luxembourgish is a High German language spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 320,000 people worldwide speak Luxembourgish.-Language family:... |
Luxembourg Luxembourg Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south... |
Kairos Edition | Florence Berg |
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| 43. | Macedonian Macedonian language Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora... |
Republic of Macedonia Republic of Macedonia Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991... |
Publishing House Kultura (I-V) Mladinska kniga Skopje (VI) |
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| 44. | Marathi Marathi language Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most... |
India India India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world... |
Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd is a publishing house in Bhopal, India. It is well known for the translation of the "Harry Potter" novels into Hindi. It was established in 1999.... |
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| 45. | Bahasa Malaysia Malay language Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore... |
Malaysia | Pelangi Books |
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| 46. | Malayalam Malayalam language Malayalam , is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is spoken by 35.9 million people... |
India India India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world... |
Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. | Radhika C. Nair |
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| 47. | Mongolian Mongolian language The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner... |
Mongolia Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest... |
Nepko Publishing | Д.Аюуш & Д.Батбаяр |
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| 48. | Nepali Nepali language Nepali or Nepalese is a language in the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family.It is the official language and de facto lingua franca of Nepal and is also spoken in Bhutan, parts of India and parts of Myanmar... |
Nepal Nepal Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India... |
Sunbird Publishing House |
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| 49. | Norwegian Norwegian language Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language... |
Norway Norway Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million... |
N.W. Damm & Søn A.S. | Torstein Bugge Høverstad |
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| 50. | Occitan | France France The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France... (Occitania Occitania Occitania , also sometimes lo País d'Òc, "the Oc Country"), is the region in southern Europe where Occitan was historically the main language spoken, and where it is sometimes still used, for the most part as a second language... ) |
Per Noste Edicions | Karine Richard Bordenave (I) |
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| 51. | Persian Persian language Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence... |
Iran Iran Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia... |
Tandis Books | Vida Eslamiyeh |
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| 52. | Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries... |
Poland Poland Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north... |
Media Rodzina Media Rodzina Media Rodzina is a publishing house in Poznań, Poland, started by Robert Gamble and Bronisław Kledzik in 1992. Their first published title was Jak mówić, żeby dzieci nas słuchały... |
Andrzej Polkowski Andrzej Polkowski Andrzej Polkowski is a Polish translator. He has translated around forty titles across several genres, including children's literature , fantasy, science fiction and history. He currently works for the Media Rodzina publishing house.- References :... |
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| 53. | Portuguese Portuguese language Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095... |
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Lia Wyler - Works :Lia Wyler has been translating books since 1969. Her translations include books by English-language authors such as Henry Miller, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, Gore Vidal, Tom Wolfe, Sylvia Plath, Stephen King, and many others....
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| 54. | Romanian Romanian language Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova... |
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Egmont Romania | Ioana Iepureanu |
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| 55. | Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics... |
Russia Russia Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects... |
Rosman Publishing |
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| 56. | Serbian Serbian language Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries.... |
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| 57. | Sinhala | Sri Lanka Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the... |
Sarasavi Publishers (Pvt) Ltd |
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| 58. | Slovak Slovak language Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people... |
Slovakia Slovakia The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south... |
IKAR |
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| 59. | Slovene | Slovenia Slovenia Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of... |
Mladinska knjiga |
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| 60. | Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the... |
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Emece Editores / Salamandra |
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| 61. | Swedish Swedish language Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish... |
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Tiden Young Books / Raben & Sjögren | Lena Fries-Gedin |
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| 62. | Thai Thai language Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively... |
Thailand Thailand Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the... |
Nanmee Books |
Ngarmpun Vejjajiva Ngarmpun Vejjajiva is a Thai novelist and translator. She was the recipient of the S.E.A. Write Award for Thailand in 2006 for her first novel, The Happiness of Kati. A wheelchair user, she has had cerebal palsy since birth and finds comfort in immersing herself in the imaginary world of reading... (IV) |
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| 63. | Tibetan Tibetan language The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,... |
China People's Republic of China China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres... (Tibet Autonomous Region Tibet Autonomous Region The Tibet Autonomous Region , Tibet or Xizang for short, also called the Xizang Autonomous Region is a province-level autonomous region of the People's Republic of China , created in 1965.... ) |
Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang |
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| 64. | Turkish Turkish language Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,... |
Turkey Turkey Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe... |
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Sevin Okyay Sevin Okyay is a Turkish literary critic, journalist, author, regular columnist and a prolific translator. Sevin had been a radio host and a teacher as well.... (II-VII) |
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| 65. | Ukrainian Ukrainian language Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet.... |
Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia... |
A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA |
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| 66. | Urdu Urdu Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an... |
Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan... |
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as... |
Darakhshanda Asghar Khokhar(I-IV) |
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| 67. | Vietnamese Vietnamese language Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam... |
Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –... |
Youth Publishing House | Lý Lan |
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| 68. | Welsh Welsh language Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa... |
United Kingdom United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages... |
Bloomsbury | Emily Huws (I) |
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Some translations, such as those to the extinct
Extinct language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...
Latin and Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
languages, were done as academic exercises, to stimulate interest in the languages and to provide students of those languages with modern reading texts. The Ancient Greek version, according to the translator, is the longest text written in Ancient Greek since the novels of Heliodorus of Emesa
Heliodorus of Emesa
Heliodorus of Emesa, from Emesa, Syria, was a Greek writer generally dated to the third century AD who is known for the ancient Greek novel or romance called the Aethiopica or sometimes "Theagenes and Chariclea"....
in the 3rd century AD, and took about a year to complete.
Note that in some countries, such as Spain and India, the book has been translated into several local languages (see section on publishers); sometimes the book has been translated into two dialects of the same language in two countries (for example, separate Portuguese versions for Brazil and for Portugal).
Unauthorised translations
The impatience of the international Harry Potter fan community for translations of the books has led to the proliferation of unauthorised or pirateCopyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
translations that are often hastily translated and posted on the internet chapter-by-chapter, or printed by small presses and sold illegally. The work may be done by multiple translators to speed the process. Such translations are often poorly written and filled with errors. Cases have occurred in many areas of the world, but China is one of the most common areas of the world for unauthorised translations and pirated editions to be sold.
One notable case involved a French 16-year-old who published serialised translations of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows online. He was arrested and his site was later shut down; however, the wife of the official translator noted that these works do not necessarily hurt the official translation.
Another example occurred in Venezuela in 2003, when an illegal translation of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling, and was published on 21 June 2003 by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic in the United States, and Raincoast in Canada...
, appeared soon after the release of the English version and five months before the scheduled release of the Spanish translation. The pirate translation was apparently so bad that the translator added messages, including "Here comes something that I'm unable to translate, sorry," and "I'm sorry, I didn't understand what that meant" in some sections. Two people were arrested in connection with the pirated version.
Another case involved the internet fan translation
Fan translation
A fan translation, in video gaming, refers to an unofficial translation of a computer game or video game.The fan translation practice grew with the rise of video game console emulation in the late 1990s. A community of people developed that were interested in replaying and modifying the games they...
community, Harry auf Deutsch, formed to translate the Harry Potter books into German more rapidly. The German publisher of the Harry Potter books, Carlsen Verlag
Carlsen Verlag
Carlsen Verlag is a subsidiary of the homonymous Danish publishing house which in turn belongs to the Swedish media company Bonnier. The branch was founded on 25 April 1953 in Hamburg. The publisher's program focuses on books for children Carlsen Verlag is a subsidiary of the homonymous Danish...
, asked them to stop immediately and threatened them with legal action; they complied, taking down the translations.
In some countries, there have been no authorised translations into the local language, but translations not sanctioned by J. K. Rowling have been prepared and published. Such was the case, for example, in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
, where the books have been unofficially translated into Sinhala and possibly into Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
. However, the more recent translations into Sinhala published by Sarasavi Bookshop are authorised by J. K. Rowling.
In Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, several unauthorised translations of the Harry Potter books exist side by side. According to one source, there may be as many as 16 Persian translations in existence concurrently. Iran is not a member of the Universal Copyright Convention
Universal Copyright Convention
The Universal Copyright Convention , adopted at Geneva in 1952, is one of the two principal international conventions protecting copyright; the other is the Berne Convention....
, so publishers are not prosecuted for publishing foreign books without respecting copyright or paying royalties.
Agents representing J. K. Rowling have stated in the past that they cannot and do not intend to prevent individuals from translating Rowling's books for their own personal enjoyment, as long as the results are not made available to the general public.
Fake translations
Whereas "pirate translations" are unauthorised translations of true Harry Potter books, "fake translations" have also appeared, which are published pastichePastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
s or fanfics
Fan fiction
Fan fiction is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator...
that a foreign publisher has tried to pass off as the translation of the real book by Rowling. There have been several such books, the most famous of which is probably Harry Potter and Bao Zoulong which was written and published in China in 2002, prior to the release of the fifth book in Rowling's series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling, and was published on 21 June 2003 by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic in the United States, and Raincoast in Canada...
.
Other fake Harry Potter books written in Chinese include Harry Potter and the Porcelain Doll (哈利・波特与瓷娃娃 or Hālì Bōtè yǔ Cíwáwa), Harry Potter and the Golden Turtle, and Harry Potter and the Crystal Vase. In August 2007, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
noted that the publication of Rowling's Deathly Hallows had inspired "a surge of peculiarly Chinese imitations," and included plot synopses and excerpts from a number of derivative works, among them Harry Potter and the Chinese Overseas Students at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and Harry Potter and the Big Funnel.
In a period of time leading up to 2003, legal pressure from the licensors of Harry Potter led an Indian publisher to stop publication of Harry Potter in Calcutta, a work in which Harry meets figures from Bengali literature
Bengali literature
Bengali literature is literary works written in Bengali language particularly from Bangladesh and the Indian provinces of West Bengal and Tripura. The history of Bengali literature traces back hundreds of years while it is impossible to separate the literary trends of the two Bengals during the...
.
Americanisation as translation
The differences between the British and American editions of the books have sometimes been referred to as "translation" into American EnglishAmerican English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
. The most noted example of this is the difference in the titles of the first book in the series: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, versus Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. A comprehensive list of differences between the American and British editions of the books is collected at the Harry Potter Lexicon web site. The changes are mostly simple lexical switches to reflect the different dialects
American and British English differences
This is one of a series of articles about the differences between British English and American English, which, for the purposes of these articles, are defined as follows:...
and prevent American readers from stumbling over unfamiliar Briticisms. Changes of this sort are common when adapting any text from British to American editions and vice versa, but in the case of the Harry Potter books, this standard practice has occasionally drawn criticism from readers who feel that the British English adds flavour to the series. Rowling herself expressed regret after changing the first book's title, as the Philosopher's Stone has been an age-old legend.
In an Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
interview, Rowling described how the alterations to the American editions came about:
Rowling pretended to bang her head against the sofa in mock frustration. "SO much has been made of that," she groans, noting that it was only done where words had been used that really meant something very different to Americans. Her American editor pointed out that the word jumper — British for pullover sweater — means a kind of dress in American. She had had no idea. "He asked, 'Can we change it to sweater,' which is just as British?" That was fine with Rowling.
Publisher Arthur Levine of Scholastic explained the changes in an interview in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
:
I wasn't trying to, quote, "Americanize" them... What I was trying to do is translate, which I think is different. I wanted to make sure that an American kid reading the book would have the same literary experience that a British kid would have."
The same article, however, points out that some British dialect was retained in the books, and in some cases certain phrases were replaced with more stereotypical British phrases, such as "spanking good" for "cracking."
Issues in translation
The Harry Potter series presents many unique challenges to translators, such as rhymes, acronyms, dialects, culture, riddles, jokes, invented words, and plot points that revolve around spellings or initials. These have been dealt with by various translators with different degrees of modification to the meaning of the original text.Translation strategies
The books carried a number of words that are considered loaded names by linguists and translators, meaning that they carry a semantic load, and that their morphologyMorphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
(structure) and phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
(sound) need to be adapted when translating them to a foreign language, for example the house names (Ravenclaw = raven
Raven
Raven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...
+ claw
Claw
A claw is a curved, pointed appendage, found at the end of a toe or finger in most mammals, birds, and some reptiles. However, the word "claw" is also often used in reference to an invertebrate. Somewhat similar fine hooked structures are found in arthropods such as beetles and spiders, at the end...
), or Voldemort's name ("flight of death" or "theft of death" in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
). These words were translated at different countries using several translation strategies, such as copying the names with no attempt to transmit the original English meaning, transliterating
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
even if the name lost its original meaning, replacing the name with another given name from the target language, or translating the name using native words that conveyed the same meaning. For example, in the Russian first book the transliterating strategy was used for some names because the "th" sound does not exist in Russian, so "Slytherin" was transliterated as "Sliterin". The translator of the second book chose the translating strategy instead, and he renamed the houses, "Hufflepuff" becoming "Puffendui" and "Ravenclaw" becoming "Kogtevran" (from the Russian word for claw, "kogot").
Culture and language
Many of the nuances of British culture and language will be unfamiliar to international readers. Such things require careful and creative translating. Nonstandard English present in the book also had to be given careful consideration. The character Rubeus HagridRubeus Hagrid
Rubeus Hagrid is a fictional character in the Harry Potter book series written by J. K. Rowling. Hagrid is introduced in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as a half-giant who is the gamekeeper and Keeper of Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts, the primary setting for the first six novels...
's West Country dialect, for example, needed to be rendered in other languages to reflect the fact that he speaks with an accent and uses particular types of slang. In the Japanese translation, he speaks in the Tōhoku dialect, which to a Japanese reader conveys a similar provincial feel. For the Hebrew translation, some of the Christian references were changed, because Israelis have less familiarity with cultural Christianity than readers elsewhere: a scene in which Sirius Black sings a parody of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen is an English traditional Christmas carol. The melody is in Aeolian mode. It was published by William B...
" replaced the song with a parody of "Mi Y'malel," a Chanukah song. In the French translation, explanations of certain features of British schools unfamiliar to French students were inserted in the dialogues (e.g., "Prefect" and "Head Boy"), but they were not distinguished from explanations in the original text of differences between ordinary British schools and wizarding schools. This could mislead readers into thinking that these features of the house and boarding systems didn't exist in real-world British schools.
Rhymes, anagrams, and acronyms
The series involves many songs, poems, and rhymes, some of which proved difficult to translators. One rhyme, a riddle told by a sphinxSphinx
A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...
in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling, published on 8 July 2000.The novel won a Hugo Award in 2001, the only Harry Potter novel to do so...
, posed a particular problem. The riddle involves taking words from a poem and using them to form a longer word, "spider," in answer to the riddle. In the Taiwanese translation, the English words are simply put in parentheses. In other translations, the riddle is changed to provide different words that can be put together to make up the translated version of "spider."
Some acronyms also proved difficult; the abbreviations O.W.L.s (Ordinary Wizarding Levels) and N.E.W.T.s (Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests) needed to be translated to reflect the fact that their abbreviations spelled out the names of animals associated with the wizarding world, which did not always work in other languages. N.E.W.T.s was translated into Swedish as F.U.T.T. (Fruktansvärt Utmattande Trollkarls-Test, Terribly Exhausting Wizard's Test). Futt means measly in Swedish. Another issue was the translation of "The Mirror of Erised." In German, it is called Der Spiegel Nerhegeb. "Erised" and "Nerhegeb" are created by reading English desire and German Begehren backwards. The Finnish translation also follows this formula of reversing a word; the mirror is called Iseeviot-peili, "iseeviot" being "toiveesi" (your wish) written backwards. In Indonesian, The Mirror of Erised is called "Cermin Tarsah" (Mirror = Cermin; Desire = Hasrat), while D.A. (Dumbledore's Army) is changed to L.D. (Laskar Dumbledore; Laskar = Army).
Areas in which anagrams are present do not make the transition easily into other languages. The name "Tom Marvolo Riddle", first mentioned in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the second novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. The plot follows Harry's second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, during which a series of messages on the walls on the school's corridors warn that the "Chamber of...
is rearranged to spell "I am Lord Voldemort". This has required translators to alter Riddle's name to make the anagram work. Sometimes translators manage to alter only one part of the name: Tom Riddle's middle name of Marvolo was changed to Marvolodemus in Serbian second edition. The first edition lacked the anagram and the original name Tom Marvolo Riddle was copied. In other languages, the middle name Marvolo was changed. It became Servolo in Brazilian Portuguese, Vandrolo in Hebrew, Marvoldo in Turkish, Vorlost in German, Narvolo in Russian, Sorvolo in Spanish, Rojvol in Czech, Marvoloso in Slovak, and Orvoloson in Italian.
In other languages, translators replaced the entire name to preserve the anagram. In French, Riddle's full name becomes Tom Elvis Jedusor (i.e. phonetically "game of fate") which forms an anagram for "Je suis Voldemort" ("I am Voldemort"). In Norwegian, his name is Tom Dredolo Venster, an anagram of "Voldemort den store", which means "Voldemort the Great". In Greek, his name is "Anton Marvolo Hurt" (Άντον Μαρβόλο Χέρτ), anagram of "Άρχον Βόλντεμορτ" which means "Lord Voldemort". In Icelandic, his name is Trevor Delgome, which becomes "(Ég)Eg er Voldemort" ("I am Voldemort"), but his middle name is not used for the anagram and stays as Marvolo. In Finnish his name is "Tom Lomen Valedro", anagram is "Ma(ä) olen Voldemort", "I am Voldemort". In Dutch, his name is "Marten Asmodom Vilijn", an anagram of "Mijn naam is Voldemort", or "My name is Voldemort". In Swedish, his name is "Tom Gus Mervolo Dolder", an anagram of "Ego sum Lord Voldemort", where "ego sum" is Latin, not Swedish, for "I am".
In Hungarian, Voldemort's name becomes "Tom Rowle Denem", which is an anagram of "Nevem Voldemort", with the "w" in the name becomes two "v"s. This caused a name collision with the character Thorfinn Rowle, who first appears in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but who is not related to Voldemort. Because of this collision, in the Hungarian translation his family name was altered to Rovel. The Arabic version avoids the issue entirely by having Riddle directly write out, "I am Lord Voldemort" (أنا لورد فولدمورت). These changes to the name created problems in later books however; in the English edition, a line of dialogue mentions that Tom Riddle shares his given name
Given name
A given name, in Western contexts often referred to as a first name, is a personal name that specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially in a family, all of whose members usually share the same family name...
with the bartender of the Leaky Cauldron, and this becomes a plot point. However, this is not the case in all translations. In the Latin version his name is Tom Musvox Ruddle, which is an anagram of "Sum Dux Voldemort", or "I am the leader Voldemort".
Invented words, proper nouns, and names
Rowling invented a great number of words and phrases for the books such as spells, incantations, magical words, items, and place names. Many of these words involve wordplay, rhyming, and historical references that are difficult to translate. A large number of spells are drawn from or inspired by Latin, and have a certain resonance with English speakers. For example, priori incantatem (a spell which causes the last spells performed by a wand to be reproduced in reverse order) would be familiar to many English-speaking readers as the words prior (previous) and incantation (spell, charm). To create a similar effect in the Hindi versionManjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd.
Manjul Publishing House Pvt. Ltd is a publishing house in Bhopal, India. It is well known for the translation of the "Harry Potter" novels into Hindi. It was established in 1999....
, the Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, typical in mantra
Mantra
A mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation"...
s, has been used for the spells. Some translators have created new words themselves; others have resorted to transliteration
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
.
Names that involve wordplay, such as Knockturn Alley and Pensieve are also difficult to translate. The former, an unsavoury area in London's magical market, is semi-homophonous
Homophone
A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...
with "nocturnally," suggesting darkness and evil. The latter is a magical bowl into which memories and thoughts can be placed and examined, and is a portmanteau of two words: pensive, meaning "musingly or dreamily thoughtful," and sieve, a type of bowl with perforations through which fine particles of a substance (such as flour) may be passed to separate them from coarser ones. Translators must creatively render such names. If the words are simply transliterated, the shades of meaning are lost; but, when new word-games are invented, they can end up sounding quite different from the original, and often reflect the translator's personal interpretation and preferences. For instance, the Turkish version of Pensieve is Düşünseli, which is a portmanteau of the words Düşünmek (to think, to imagine) and sel (a flood of water). The German version of Pensieve is Denkarium with denken, meaning "to think," and "aquarium." The Swedish version of Pensieve is Minnessåll which means memory's sieve. The Norwegian translation of Pensieve is tanketank which translates to Thought-tank. The Hebrew version achieves a similar effect to the English in its translation of Pensieve; Pensieve is הגיגית (Hagigit), which is a combination of the word הגיג (hagig) meaning thought, and the word גיגית (gigit) meaning tub. In Czech translation, Pensieve is "Myslánka" (from "myslet" - think) and Knockturn Alley is Obrtlá ulice, a rather complex neologism with many meanings and associations, but based on the word "obrtlík" (swivel) and the phrase "otočit se na obrtlíku" (run away suddenly). The "Nocturnal" wordplay is not used in the Czech translation. The Vietnamese version of "Pensieve" is "Tưởng Ký", which is a combination word of "tư tưởng" ("thought" or "mind") and "ký" (literally means something to keep thoughts, like a diary.)
Often, names in Harry Potter have historical or linguistic significance in English, which may create problems if the translator does not recognise or misjudges it. Rowling commented on this phenomenon in Conversations with J.K. Rowling, in which she complained that the Italian translation of Professor Dumbledore
Albus Dumbledore
Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore is a major character in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. For most of the series, he is the headmaster of the wizarding school Hogwarts...
's last name was "Silente"; rather than recognizing that "Dumbledore" was an old Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
word for "bumblebee," the translator took the word "dumb" and translated it as "silent". By contrast, the Czech translator used the Old Czech word for bumblebee - Brumbál (in modern Czech čmelák).
Plot points
In some cases, English-speaking fans have sought clues to the story's mysteries by examining the way certain parts of the books have been translated in foreign editions. A case in point is the identity of a character mentioned by initials only in the book Harry Potter and the Half-Blood PrinceHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth and penultimate novel in the Harry Potter series by British author J. K. Rowling...
. The English initials R.A.B. could have belonged to several minor characters from the books, but variations on the initials in other languages gave evidence to the true identity of the mystery character: in the Dutch edition of the book R.A.B. was translated into R.A.Z., 'zwart' being Dutch for 'black'; in the Norwegian edition, R.A.B. translates to 'R.A.S.', svart being Norwegian for 'black'; and in the Finnish edition the initials were R.A.M., 'musta' being Finnish for 'black'. Fans took this to mean that the character was Regulus Black, the brother of Sirius Black
Sirius Black
Sirius Black is a fictional character in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Sirius was first mentioned briefly in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as a wizard who lent Rubeus Hagrid a flying motorbike shortly after Lord Voldemort killed James and Lily Potter...
; when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published, this was revealed to be the case.
Similarly, the title for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling, and was published on 21 June 2003 by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic in the United States, and Raincoast in Canada...
did not make it obvious whether the word "Order" referred to a group of people or to a directive. The information that it was a group of people was then determined by viewing the title in other languages.
Rowling released an alternative title for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for use by translators finding difficulty translating its meaning. The alternative title (in English) is Harry Potter and the Relics of Death.
Character gender
A few characters in the series are identified with a title and last name, or with a gender-neutral name. In some languages—for example, those where adjectives are gendered—it was necessary for the translator to guess the character's gender. The Hebrew translation initially made Blaise Zabini a girl, though the character was revealed as a boy in later books. To avoid this problem, Isabel Nunes, the Portuguese translator, asked Rowling about the gender of some of the characters—Zabini, Professor Sinistra, and "R.A.B."—while working on her translations.External links
- Article from "Translorial", Part I, Part II
- The Sphinx's Song in 13 Languages
- International cover gallery
- Harry Potter name and word equivalents in many different languages
- The Intricacies of Onomastics in Harry Potter and its French Translation (La Clé des Langues)
- Database of Harry Potter terms and chapter titles in different languages
- Dictionary of Dutch Harry Potter terms
- Dictionary of Norwegian Harry Potter terms and names
- Harry Potter in Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese Translation
- English - German Dictionary + Lexicon of Harry Potter terms and names
- Platform 9 3/4: Crown Publishing (Taiwan) site containing lists of names, books, spells, quidditch terms, etc. in Chinese and English
- Article about American English "translation"
- Harry Potter terms in Japanese
- Petition to help publish an Esperanto translation of Harry Potter
- Interview with the Swedish translator of the series
- Harry Potter books in Indian languages