On our Facebook group, listeners are debating the pros and cons of adapting the British Harry Potter series for American audiences. Is it really necessary to change distinctly British terms like kippers, jumpers, and trainers to dessert, to kippers, sweaters, and sneakers — especially since young readers also have to make sense of unfamiliar, invented terms like Quidditch and golden snitch? The series has been translated from English into more than 80 languages, including Yiddish. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Do Americans Need Briticisms Americanized in Books?”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
The Harry Potter series has been translated into dozens of different languages now.
And there was a little bit of, I don’t know if you’d call it translation or not, between the British version and the version that was published here in the United States.
For example, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in this country became Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
And there were a lot of other things that were Americanized in that version, like changing pudding to dessert and kippers to sausages and jumpers to sweaters and trainers to sneakers.
And we just had an interesting discussion on our Facebook group about whether or not that’s a good idea.
Do kids really need to have that kind of book translated for them?
And there were differing opinions.
You know, some people said you want to make it accessible to young people.
But on the other hand, Quidditch is a made-up word.
All the spells.
Yeah, all the spells.
All the names of all the people and all the places.
Yeah.
Right.
The world itself, the Potterdom itself, all of that stuff is new.
So what are a few Briticisms if you’re an American?
Right.
And speaking of spell, you know, the term Scotch tape in this country is cello tape.
Right.
Over there.
And so forth. Right, right. And so the pun Spello tape, which is what wizards use, is lost on American readers.
But we had different opinions on our Facebook group about that.
Scott said, the whole point or one of the points of reading fantasy and science fiction is to stretch the mind beyond the normal work a day or school a day experience.
Being challenged by such broaden my vocabulary as well as my imagination.
Yeah, that’s how I feel.
If Tolkien had been somehow Americanized when I’d read it as a boy, it would have been horrible for me.
I would have missed some of the flavor of the book.
And actually, once I realized as an adult that I was reading the Americanized version of Harry Potter, I sought out the British versions for the later volumes.
I didn’t want to read the Americanized versions.
Well, I’m sure our listeners have opinions about that.
Yeah, absolutely.
And by the way, there’s a new Yiddish version of Harry Potter.
Oh, how about that?
How cool is that?
I don’t speak or read Yiddish, but that’s super interesting.
Yeah, there was an interesting article in Tablet Magazine about that and about the fact that Yiddish is a Germanic language, so the English sounds aren’t that foreign.
So, for example, Harry’s classmate, Neville Longbottom, didn’t have to be translated into Neville Longtukas.
Wait, he is Neville Longtukas?
No, he’s not.
Oh, okay.
He’s not.
What is he then?
He’s just Neville Longbottom.
Oh, okay. Gotcha.
In that book.
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