Chaim Potter?

[mabfan]

I think this might interest some folks:

From the World Jewish Digest, the article "When Harry Meets Hebrew" by Sarah Bronson, all about the issues involved in translating the Harry Potter books into Hebrew. The translator of the books, Gili Bar-Hillel, seems to have found it a challenging but rewarding task. For example, how would you translate the name Remus Lupin? Should a Hebrew-speaking Harry Potter eat bacon? And so on.

Comments

[sboydtaylor.livejournal.com]

I'da never thunk it. :)

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

Why shouldn't he eat bacon, just because the book is in hebrew? Are they worried about setting a bad example for the children?

[braintraumered.livejournal.com]

I can just see the confusion with lemon sherbet sweets!

Without them in your experience, there isn't much chance of describing them effectively in a book without spending half a chapter on it!

At least Marmite never came up :)

[sethg]

The Latin spell names, of course, should be translated into Aramaic.

[cogitationitis.livejournal.com]

Hebrew translation is fascinating. For example, in an early translation of Tolkein, elves were called "the sons of Lillith" (B'nai Lillit). Later translators were a bit less polarized.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the pointer. It's a very interesting article. Many of the issues raised are the classic dilemmas of translation, but because this is a book whose readers tend to be a) children and b) passionate about it, they are stated extra clearly.