Harry Potter and Creamy Beer, or How to translate author’s neologisms from English into Muggle

The legendary book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” was first published in Russian 20 years ago. A little-known story on the Russian-speaking market about the “boy-who-survived” has hit the shelves of bookstores.

J.K. Rowling has invented a huge number of copyright neologisms in her books. Translating these new words is a real art.

The now familiar “butter beer”, which the Potter heroes drank, could be translated as “butter beer” or even “creampie”. There was even an idea to replace it with sbiten.

Today we will look at exactly how the author’s neologisms are translated in literature using the example of “Harry Potter”. While many bloggers were procrastinating with Villainous Zlei and Severus Snape, “butter beer” and “flying gunpowder” were perceived as something familiar. And this is the result of the delicate work of the translators. Let’s take a closer look. Lumos and let’s go!

How to translate neologisms: theory and Muggles (or Moogles)

In linguistics, a set of techniques and methods has long been defined by which neologisms need to be translated. But the choice of the tool for each specific case completely depends on the translator.

The author’s neologism is a special case. This is an artificially created word or phrase that makes sense only in a separate literary work or a series of books where events take place in the same universe. They are not included in the general vocabulary of the language, therefore, they often do not have equivalents in other linguistic systems.

The author’s neologisms do not require any unique tools for a translator – everything has been known for a long time. But there are no less difficulties from this, because you need not only to convey the meaning of the word, but also to preserve the effect of its form and pronunciation.

J.K. Rowling has created over a hundred unique words in the Harry Potter novels. Therefore, it is worth talking about the tools that translators used to convey meanings.

Transliteration is our everything (or almost everything)

The simplest is transliteration. When a word in Russian sounds the same as in English.

One of the first new neologisms that the reader encounters in the pages of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is “muggle”. The root “mug” means “simpleton”, “simpleton”. That is, the word in a somewhat dismissive tone speaks of people who do not have magical abilities.

It is almost impossible to convey this meaning without re-creating the term. And since it is one of the key neologisms, all translators, without exception, simply transliterated it.

Igor Oransky, the translator of the first book about Harry Potter into Russian, conveyed the word through direct transliteration – “Muggle”. Victor Morozov, who translated the book into Ukrainian, used the same instrument – “mal”, removing the doubling of consonants for euphony. In German, for example, Klaus Fritz translated the word as “muggel” – the suffix was changed to German.

Some translators have gone through tracing. Maria Spivak used the word “moogle” in the first version of the translation. In the official version from the MAHAON publishing house, the editor corrected it to the more familiar Muggle. And Yuri Machkasov, in another version of the translation, rendered the word “moogl”.

Some neologisms cannot be conveyed in any other way than by transliteration. For example, the names of the coins are “galleon”, “shekle” and “knut”. The names of foreign currencies are not translated, so they were left in their original form.

Can’t transliteration? Tracking will help!

Calculation is also quite common. In the Burrow, home of the Weasley family, Harry Potter and his friends chase the gnome pests out of the garden. The process is called degnomming.

The word literally means “get rid of the gnomes.” The prefix “de-” means in English “separation” or “deprivation”. And “gnome” has become a verb.

“Expelling the gnomes” is a perfectly acceptable option, but “dispelling” and “dispelling” will be much more interesting. When tracing, they simply changed the prefix, which is more in line with the norms of Russian – and a new word turned out that fully conveys the meaning laid down by the author.

Or take Quidditch as an example (or Quidditch, as you are accustomed to). Keeper is the player who defends the gate. In sports there is already an equivalent of this word – “goalkeeper”. Orange used it. And Spivak came up with a new equivalent – the “guard”. Not the best option, because it is not associated with sports.

But for the word “seeker” there are no equivalents, so I had to translate. The direct translation of the word is “seeker”. This is how Yuri Machkasov translated the word. Maria Spivak also translated within the meaning, but with a slight change – “bloodhound”. Semantically correct, but the “bloodhound” is perceived by the Russian-speaking reader as a dog, so the context here suffers a little. Igor Oranskiy, on the contrary, decided to choose another equivalent that would better correspond to the role of a player on the field – a “catcher”. It is this definition that “went to the people.”

Quidditch has a ton of new words. And the names of the balls are “Snitch”, “Bludger” and “Quaffle”. In one version, “bludger” was called “loupe” and “snitch” was called “click.” In another, the Snitch became a “sneaky”.

There are two other playing positions – “chaser” and “beater”. “Hunter” and “Beater” is not the most accurate translation, but with meaning. These names allude to the hunting process. This was not in the original, but the readers loved the translation. Not trivial, quite euphonious and there is a sense. True, other translators made fun of them: “beater” in one version of the translation suddenly became “chop”, and “chaser” – “catching up”. Chop, Karl!

Contextual translation – dangerous, but interesting

The most difficult and controversial tool is to create your own author’s neologism. The so-called contextual translation.

The difficulty is that the translator needs to have a rather fine sense of the line where transliteration will be relevant and where a new word needs to be invented. In fact, the translator relies only on his instinct and understanding of the writing style. This is a lottery – the translation of one author’s neologism can “come in”, and the second will be ridiculed wherever possible.

Take “Floo powder” – a special powder with which you can travel around the fireplace network. “Floo” is obviously a modified “fly” – to “fly”.

Orange translated it as “flying gunpowder.” Quite euphonious and accurate translation. Spivak also created the phrase “whirled flour”. “Kruzhanaya” – from the word “circle”, apparently. Or a “mug” because it is kept in a mug near the fireplace. Moreover, “flour” is “a powder from some kind of crushed substance.” This is clearly inaccurate use of the token, which is why this translation is often ridiculed.

There is also a variant of “Smoke”, in which there is nothing of either “powder” or “fly”. In general, a sonorous name, but does not convey the original meanings.

In the unofficial “popular” translation there was another version of “smoke powder”. Also a pretty good analogue of the original name.

In fact, a translator has two main ways: to try to convey the original meaning of the term, but at the same time sacrifice part or all of the meanings of the lexeme, or to try to translate it in meaning by creating a new word, but at the same time there is a risk that readers will not accept it.

And the most difficult thing is that a specialist never knows in advance how his translation will be accepted. Initially, the localization of the book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” from the publishing house “ROSMAN” was assessed rather skeptically, but after the rights to the series were bought by “MAHAON”, the opinion of many readers changed.

If you take several independent translations, you will notice that the final results of localization of the author’s neologisms differ dramatically. “Chuika” and the experience of a translator play a key role here. But first of all, you need perfect knowledge of both languages ​​with which the specialist works. After all, you need to catch only the first and second meanings, but also the subtle hints and moods that the word evokes in native speakers. It’s difficult, but when readers really like the book, it’s worth it.

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