Monday, November 17, 2003

Harry Potter Worldwide

The BBC is reporting that J.K. Rowling has begun work on book six in the Harry Potter series. According to the report, the series has been translated into 60 languages, although I'm only able to find 51 translations of the first book (and that is including the U.S. English and U.K. English and the Cyrillic and Latin Serbian editions separately):
  • Harry Potter en die Towenaar se Steen (Afrikaans)

  • Harry Potter dhe guri filozofal (Albanian)

  • Harry Potter dan Batu Bertuah (Basha Indonesia)

  • Harry Potter eta sorgin-harria (Basque)

  • Хари Потър и философският камък (Bulgarian)

  • Harry Potter i la pedra filosofal (Catalan)

  • 哈利 波特与魔法石 (Chinese Simplified)

  • 哈利波特─神秘的魔法石 (Chinese Traditional)

  • Harry Potter i kamen mudraca (Croat)

  • Harry Potter a Kamen Mudrců (Czech)

  • Harry Potter og De Vises Sten (Danish)

  • Harry Potter en de Steen der Wijzen (Dutch)

  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (UK English)

  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (US English)

  • Harry Potter ja tarkade kivi (Estonian)

  • Harry Potter og vitramannasteinurin (Faroese)

  • هری پاتر-سنگ جادو (Farsi)

  • Harry Potter ja viisasten kivi (Finnish)

  • Harry Potter à l’école des sorciers (French)

  • Harry Potter e a pedra filosofal (Galego)

  • ჰარი პოტერი და ფილოსოფიური ქვა (Georgian)

  • Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen (German)

  • Ο Χάρι Πότερ και η Φιλοσοφική Λίθος (Greek (Modern))

  • הארי פוטר ואבן החכמים (Hebrew)

  • हैरी पॉटर और पारस पटभर (Hindi)

  • Harry Potter és a bölcsek köve (Hungarian)

  • Harry Potter og viskusteinninn (Icelandic)

  • Harry Potter e la pietra filosofale (Italian)

  • ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石 (Japanese)

  • 해리포터와 마법사의 돌 (Korean)

  • Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis (Latin)

  • Harijs Poters un filozofu akmens (Latvian)

  • Haris Poteris ir Išminties akmuo (Lithuanian)

  • Harry Potter og De vises stein (Norwegian)

  • Harry Potter un de Wunnersteen (Plattdeutsch)

  • Harry Potter i kamień filozoficzny (Polish)

  • Harry Potter e a Pedra Filosofal (Portuguese)

  • Harry Potter şi piatra filozofală (Romanian)

  • Гарри Поттер и философский камень (Russian)

  • Harry Potter agus Clach an Fheallsanaich (Scots Gaelic)

  • Hari Poter i kamen mudrosti (Serbian (Latin))

  • Хари Потер и камен мудрости (Serbian (Cyrillic))

  • Harry Potter a kameň mudrcov (Slovak)

  • Harry Potter Kamen modrosti (Slovene)

  • Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal (Spanish)

  • Harry Potter och De Vises Sten (Swedish)

  • แฮร์รี่ พอตเตอร์ กับศิลาอาถรรพ์ (Thai)

  • Harry Potter ve Felsefe Taşı (Turkish)

  • Гаррі Поттер і філософський камінь (Ukrainian)

  • Harry Potter và Hòn đá phù thủy (Vietnamese)

  • Harri Potter a Maen yr Athronydd (Welsh)
Other editions are reported to exist in Arabic, Bengali (may be only in an unofficial translation), Greek (Ancient), Greenlandic, Macedonian, Urdu, and Zulu, but I can't find the titles for them online. Which leaves about a handful of languages missing.

What's also interesting is that there seem to be a number of lesser-used languages into which Harry Potter has been translated. I suppose this is to help encourage Welsh, Basque, or Galego children, for example, to practice/use the language, just as the Latin and Ancient Greek editions can be used to encourage students to study the language.

The BBC Harry Potter subsite includes several articles about the translations of the books into various languages, as well as reports about various fan translation sites that cropped up to translate the new books before an official translation could be made.

ADDENDUM: Okay, some corrections based on comments here and over at Languagehat. I think I got the L-R/R-L character input fixed for the Hebrew. Korean, Bulagaian and Ukranian are now fixed. I'm sure I messed up copying the Hindi for "the philosopher's stone" (पारस पटभर). There could well be other problems with this list, let me know and I will try to correct them. Thanks!

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