List of Harry Potter translations

For reasons of secrecy, translations were only allowed to begin after each book had been published in English, creating a lag of several months for readers of other languages.

Issues arising in the translation of Harry Potter include cultural references, riddles, anticipating future plot points, and Rowling's creative names for characters and other elements in the magical world which often involve word play and phonology.

[citation needed] 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.

Golyshev was renowned for his translations of William Faulkner and George Orwell,[4] and was known to snub the Harry Potter books in interviews and refer to them as inferior literature.

[citation needed] The Turkish translation of books two to five was undertaken by Sevin Okyay, a popular literary critic and cultural commentator.

[15] Basque Country, i.e. Belarus People's Literature Publishing House (人民文学出版社); Jagruti Trivedi[92] Illustrated by Serena Riglietti Guy Berg (II) Leon Blake[13] Nepko Publishing Д.Аюуш & Д.Батбаяр[153] Editorial Presença[128] Lia Wyler Ioana Iepureanu (I-VII)[173][174] Black & White Publishing - Itchy Coo[185][186] Matthew Fitt (I)[185] Mladinska knjiga[128] Dost Kitabevi The impatience of the international Harry Potter fan community for translations of the books has led to the proliferation of unauthorised or pirate translations that are often hastily translated and posted on the internet chapter-by-chapter, or printed by small presses and sold illegally.

A director at People's Literature Publishing House, who obtained the official license, worried that the unauthorised translations would lead to the spread of pirated copies.

[220] One notable case involved a French 16-year-old who published serialised translations of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows online.

[230] In August 2007, The New York Times 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.

[citation needed] The book's title was changed due to the American publisher's concern that children would be confused by a reference to philosophy.

[citation needed] A comprehensive list of differences between the American and British editions of the books is collected at the Harry Potter Lexicon website.

[235] The changes are mostly simple lexical switches to reflect the different dialects and prevent American readers from stumbling over unfamiliar Briticisms.

[238] Publisher Arthur Levine of Scholastic explained the changes in an interview with The New Yorker:I wasn't trying to, quote, "Americanize" them... What I was trying to do is translate, which I think is different.

"[239] The Harry Potter series presents many challenges to translators, such as rhymes, acronyms, dialects, culture, riddles, jokes, invented words, and plot points that revolve around spellings or initials.

In the Italian editions, the house names were changed to animal-colour pairings: Gryffindor is "Grifondoro" ("grifon d'oro" means "golden griffin"), Slytherin is "Serpeverde" ("serpe verde" means "green snake"), Ravenclaw was, in the first edition of the first book, "Pecoranera" ("pecora nera", "black sheep"), but was then changed to "Corvonero" ("corvo nero", "black raven") and Hufflepuff is "Tassorosso" ("tasso rosso", "red badger") in the first translation and the films and "Tassofrasso" in the revisited translation.

[242] In the French translation, the name "Hogwarts" is changed to "Poudlard", which means "bacon lice",[243] roughly maintaining the original idea of warts of a hog.

The character Rubeus Hagrid'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.

According to the Hebrew translator, "the point of the lemon sherbets is to tell us something about Dumbledore’s character in that this wise old wizard with a long white beard carries around a children’s treat in his pocket.

"[95] The Arabic translation, which was written with a predominantly Muslim audience in mind, omitted references to food and drink forbidden by Islam.

[244] As the Arabic translators were seeking to cater to religiously conservative readers, they also removed every reference to characters kissing, even on the cheek, and had them wave instead.

[243] Similarly, the Snatchers, a group of people who capture Muggle-born wizards and other enemies of the Death Eater regime and hand them over for money following Voldemort's takeover of the Ministry of Magic, were referred to as Szmalcownicy in the Polish translation, in reference to Poles who sold out Jews to the Nazis for money during the Holocaust.

[251] The title of the seventh book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, proved particularly difficult to translate into different languages.

[252] Languages with different word order than English presented challenges when a character begins speaking and is interrupted before finishing.

For instance, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Ron Weasley asks his mother "Why in the name of Merlin's saggy left..." before his father cuts him off and scolds him for talking to her that way.

[citation needed] Other translations, such as the Taiwanese Chinese and Japanese versions, sidestepped the issue altogether by displaying the main text of the anagram in English and added in the meaning in brackets beside it.

[citation needed] Often, names in Harry Potter have historical or linguistic significance in English, which may create problems if the translator does not recognise it.

[citation needed] 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.

The Vietnamese translation, which was originally published in instalments, originally interpreted "Order" as a directive and translated it as "Harry Potter và Mệnh lệnh Phượng hoàng"; when it became clear that "Order" referred to a group of people, the title was changed to "Harry Potter và Hội Phượng hoàng".

[257] In Italy the title has been translated as Harry Potter e i doni della morte replacing "hallows" with "presents" because the word "relic" is often used in reference to the remains or personal effects of a saint.