Harry Potter in Ancient Greek
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Harry Potter in Ancient Greek
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Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek
#2Oh god, they transliterated the name "Harry Potter" to "Άρειος Ποτήρ", which pretty much means "aryan cup"! I'm dying over here.
Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek
#3Oh god, they transliterated the name "Harry Potter" to "Άρειος Ποτήρ", which pretty much means "aryan cup"! I'm dying over here.
From the article:
"And Harry Potter is Ἅρειος Ποτήρ [Hareios Poter]- ἄρειος [areios] means "belonging to Ares", the war god - appropriate for the young warrior, and ποτήρ [poter] is a Greek word for "cup" or "goblet" - presumably the cup of wisdom from which Harry must quickly learn to drink deeply."
It doesn't look like Aryan was what the translator believes it means?
Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek
#4Oh god, they transliterated the name "Harry Potter" to "Άρειος Ποτήρ", which pretty much means "aryan cup"! I'm dying over here.
From the article: "And Harry Potter is Ἅρειος Ποτήρ [Hareios Poter]- ἄρειος [areios] means "belonging to Ares", the war god - appropriate for the young warrior, and ποτήρ [poter] is a Greek word for "cup" or "goblet" - presumably the cup of wisdom from which Harry must quickly learn to drink deeply." It doesn't look like Aryan was what the translator believes it means?
Actually, both are right, because the words are homonyms. "Hareios" is both the word we use for "aryan" and for "something of Ares". I actually thought "Aryan" was supposed to mean "sons of Ares", but apparently the root is indo-european.
I guess it's much better with his explanation, but "aryan glass" sounds amazingly funny in Greek. He basically nailed all the names, they're very well done, and all the explanations he gives for them are correct (the ones I've seen so far, anyway).
Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article: "And Harry Potter is Ἅρειος Ποτήρ [Hareios Poter]- ἄρειος [areios] means "belonging to Ares", the war god - appropriate for the young warrior, and ποτήρ [poter] is a Greek word for "cup" or "goblet" - presumably the cup of wisdom from which Harry must quickly learn to drink deeply." It doesn't look like Aryan was what the translator believes it means?
Actually, both are right, because the words are homonyms. "Hareios" is both the word we use for "aryan" and for "something of Ares". I actually thought "Aryan" was supposed to mean "sons of Ares", but apparently the root is indo-european. I guess it's much better with his explanation, but "aryan glass" sounds amazingly funny in Greek. He basically nailed all the names, they're very well done, and all the explanations…
I wouldn't know :) It must be a weird task to try to translate something as bizarre as names from one language to another. Harry isn't exactly a distinctive name. It's rather common, like the name John. I wonder, why not pick a traditional Greek name for the protagonist rather than trying to find something that seems similar to the English name?
Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, both are right, because the words are homonyms. "Hareios" is both the word we use for "aryan" and for "something of Ares". I actually thought "Aryan" was supposed to mean "sons of Ares", but apparently the root is indo-european. I guess it's much better with his explanation, but "aryan glass" sounds amazingly funny in Greek. He basically nailed all the names, they're very well done, and all the explanations…
I wouldn't know :) It must be a weird task to try to translate something as bizarre as names from one language to another. Harry isn't exactly a distinctive name. It's rather common, like the name John. I wonder, why not pick a traditional Greek name for the protagonist rather than trying to find something that seems similar to the English name?
I think it's because an additional constraint. Translating it to just "John" or something is fine, but translating it to something that both sounds like the original and has meaning in the new language and is relevant to the book is just brilliant, and he did it for many of the names.
Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek
#7Off topic: I have been reading Harry Potter in French as my gateway to French literature. My love for French actually started with The Count of Monte Cristo which made want to learn French just so as to read the original Le Comte de Monte-Cristo.
Obviously, my French (starting from zero) a mere year or so later isn't good enough to read something like Alexandre Dumas' masterpiece, but I figured if I started with a book I've literally read dozens of times in English that I always know what the next sentence will say, well, that would be a good place to start.
Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek
#8Off topic: I have been reading Harry Potter in French as my gateway to French literature. My love for French actually started with The Count of Monte Cristo which made want to learn French just so as to read the original Le Comte de Monte-Cristo . Obviously, my French (starting from zero) a mere year or so later isn't good enough to read something like Alexandre Dumas' masterpiece, but I figured if I started with a b…
I'm doing the same exact thing in Spanish right now! I've just finished Harry Potter y La Camara de Los Secretos :)
Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek
#9Off topic: I have been reading Harry Potter in French as my gateway to French literature. My love for French actually started with The Count of Monte Cristo which made want to learn French just so as to read the original Le Comte de Monte-Cristo . Obviously, my French (starting from zero) a mere year or so later isn't good enough to read something like Alexandre Dumas' masterpiece, but I figured if I started with a b…
I am a firm believer that one should spend at least 10 or 20 years learning French and then read Les Miserables and Le Compte de Monte-Cristo.
The same could be said about La sombra del viento, 100 años de soledad or Neruda's poems in Spanish.
In English, only Virginia Woolf inspires the same awe for language that these other books impregnated in me.
In some sense, these authors don't use words. They let words use them.
Re: Harry Potter in Ancient Greek
#10Off topic: I have been reading Harry Potter in French as my gateway to French literature. My love for French actually started with The Count of Monte Cristo which made want to learn French just so as to read the original Le Comte de Monte-Cristo . Obviously, my French (starting from zero) a mere year or so later isn't good enough to read something like Alexandre Dumas' masterpiece, but I figured if I started with a b…
This is an amazing way to improve your knowledge of a foreign language. When I started reading French novels, I could mostly understand maybe 60% and guess another 30%. But after 10,000 pages, I was only running into unknown words every few pages, and my understanding of idioms was vastly better.
The same thing works for listening comprehension: Find a DVD box set of easy TV series, one where you can understand maybe 40% of the dialog, and just start watching. It's OK to use a good dub of a series you've already watched. Repeat this with, say, 5 series and you'll see an amazing boost in listening comprehension. TV series are usually better than films for this exercise, because they'll give you 50+ hours of mostly the same people speaking about a limited set of topics, which helps a lot in the beginning.
It seems like the brain is very good at upgrading partial comprehension to nearly complete comprehension. But the trick is getting to an enjoyable level of partial comprehension.