![]() ![]() By preserving English-language sound at the cost of meaning, these transliterations likely make the Harry Potter series seem even more overtly foreign and inaccessible to a reader of the Arabic translation. #HARRY POTTER IN HINDI WRITTEN HOW TO#2 Given that these names are unfamiliar and that short vowels are not written in Arabic texts, anyone reading these translations who doesn’t also know the English counterparts is apt to have a difficult time figuring out how to even pronounce the names, let alone any underlying meaning. In the case of the Arabic translations, the translators paid almost no attention to the descriptive aspect of names, simply transliterating them into the Arabic alphabet. As noted above, Xenophilius Lovegood and the Malfoys are two examples where this occurs in the novels, but there are many more cases in which translators come to a difficult crossroads: keep the names as they are in Rowling’s original in order to stay close to the text (a choice that risks non-English speaking readers missing the underlying meaning), or change them in order to communicate this meaning as effectively as possible (a choice that risks both losing or altering the meaning and potentially alienating the readers from the wider English-speaking Potterverse). In the case of the Harry Potter novels, however, Rowling added an additional layer of complexity by giving many of the people and places in the stories names that are imbued with significance, sometimes playing with English words and sometimes drawing on other languages altogether. Where proper nouns such as character or place names are often kept in their original form for the sake of consistency across translations (and because in most cases there is relatively little to be gained from altering them), fantasy literature can sometimes complicate this strategy by inventing unique names and imaginary places. There are generally no strict guidelines for translators to follow, leaving the decision as to when and where not to translate up to the individual translator. The translation of literature, regardless of genre, is never an exact science to take a story from one language and translate it into another, translators always have to interpret and amend the original text in an attempt to capture the tone and essence of the story as closely as possible. ![]() A closer look at the translation of the Harry Potter series and, more broadly, the Potterverse, consequently offers a unique opportunity to consider the role of language in shaping fan communities and their relationships to the books. As readers around the world eagerly anticipated diving into the stories of Harry’s adventures, translators were faced with both the typical challenges in translating fantasy literature and the particular difficulties of undertaking this task for a series with such an intense international following. Participants in the Harry Potter fandom hail from all over the world, and the ability to communicate in a common magical language is no small part of membership within this community. 1 But, when Rowling first embarked on writing the series, she had no way of knowing that the books would resonate across cultures in this way. This clarification is important to consider in light of the fact that, as of 2018, the Harry Potter series has been translated into eighty languages. What must be emphasized here is that these fictional words have been inducted specifically into the OED, that is, the English language. ![]() With the emergence of Harry Potter as a transnational sensation, it was not only the stories that rose to fame, but also the Harry Potter vocabulary a person confused by someone’s casual use of “muggle” or “quidditch” in conversation can now look up their definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) because they have been so effectively integrated into the English vernacular. Rowling’s creative use of language is a defining feature of the novels, an intrinsic and foundational element of the extensive world-building that is part of what makes Harry Potter so special. The language of the Harry Potter series is rife with clever wordplay that includes terms invented by the author, alliteration, spells, and names with underlying meanings related to the characters (take, for example, Xenophilius Lovegood, whose name means “lover of the strange or foreign” or the Malfoys, whose surname comes from the French “mal foi” or “bad faith”). These are just a few examples of the unique words that form the vast magical vocabulary that frames the Harry Potter universe. ![]()
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