
Asterix in Translation: The Genius of Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge - DanBC
https://auntymuriel.com/2012/12/23/asterix-in-translation-the-genius-of-anthea-bell-and-derek-hockridge/
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btilly
I grew up in Canada, and so was exposed to Asterix. As were people that I've
met from France (of course), Australia, India, Spain, Germany, etc, etc, etc.

And yet in the United States the comics are almost non-existent. My best guess
is that American publishers don't think that Americans will understand such
sophisticated humor.

Whatever they think, kids that I expose to the comics consistently love them.
At a younger age for the physical humor (such as Obelix accidentally walking
through doors). At an older age, for all of the layers (many of which I know
escape me).

The originals were excellent. The translations are excellent. I highly
recommend them. Though I'd recommend starting with the ones written while
Goscinny was still alive. The look of the latter ones is still the same, but
there is more reference to repeated in jokes and the overall humor is not to
the same quality.

~~~
andrepd
> My best guess is that American publishers don't think that Americans will
> understand such sophisticated humor.

I must admit I too feel as tempted as always to go "dense Americans and their
superhero comics", but here the reason is probably simply that a big part of
the humour is done by poking fun of European national stereotypes, and also
regional stereotypes of France. None of that translates really well to an
American audience.

~~~
mkl
You don't need to be familiar with the actual stereotypes to get jokes about
them. As a kid in New Zealand I understood "Hey these people are all the same
in this funny way, and the puns about it are great!".

Asterix is incredibly dense with jokes; you can miss lots and still find it
hilarious.

~~~
jimjimjim
Very popular pretty much all around the world... except the us.

when i was a kid many school libraries (do schools still have libraries?) had
all the tintin and asterix books but no other comics.

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hoytech
Another nice example is the name of Obelix's little dog. In French it's
Idéfix, a play on "idée fixe". In English it's Dogmatix, a play on "dogmatic"
(preserving the French joke) and, obviously, "dog".

~~~
sys_64738
Chief Vitalstatistix has a wife called Influenza.

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mkl
Vitalstatistix's wife is Impedimenta in English. There is an Influenza though.
A fragment from Wikipedia: "Orthopaedix [...] and his family move to the
village after buying the deeds from Tremensdelirius [...]. His wife Angina,
after a major altercation with Impedimenta, pressures him into challenging
Vitalstatistix for leadership. In the film Asterix and the Vikings his
daughter Influenza [...]" [1].

The names are fantastic: Asterix the star of the series, Obelix who makes
obelisks, Getafix the druid, Unhygienix the fishmonger (his wife is Bacteria),
Fulliautomatix the blacksmith, Geriatrix the old guy, Cacofonix the bard, are
main characters. Minor characters include Romans Crismus Bonus, Magnumopus and
Gluteus Maximus, secret agent Doubleosix, Egyptians Artifis (who schemes) and
Edifis (an architect), Phoenician merchant Ekonomikrisis, and on and on.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asterix_characters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asterix_characters)

~~~
sys_64738
And Sean Connery is Doubleosix's doppelganger! Who'd have thunked?

~~~
maxnoe
In German, it is Majestix for the chief and Gutemine for his wife.

Gutemine is a play on German saying "Gute Miene zu Bösem Spiel", meaning
keeping a happy face in bad circumstances.

~~~
sys_64738
This is what I loved about the translations to English from the original
French. It wasn't just a direct translation but they used the converted
language humor injected into the narrative.

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beforan
I grew up with several classic Asterix stories on my bookshelves, and was
always charmed by them in every way. There's no doubt that these translations
have had a lasting effect on my sense of humour.

Not being a French speaker (at least not a good one), I have often wondered to
what degree the original intent was lost. Certainly, we are very fortunate
that the English translations are of such high quality, and give us similar
humour, if not the same actual jokes. But I'd obviously worked out that in
some scenarios the original joke would simply not work in English, and I've
wondered what the differences were like.

So thanks for this article, which has shed some light on my wonderings.

That first example in particular, with Jericho / Gericault, ensures that,
while we unfortunately can't make the same fairly direct reference as the
french, there's still an in joke to be had there by those familiar with the
parodied source scene (which I was not previously, and now am, and now further
respect the translators)

~~~
wenc
In many cases, the English translation actually improved on the humor of the
original.

One example of this is in the names of characters. The dog is named Idefix in
French, but Dogmatix in English, which is more apropos since he is a dog. The
druid is Panoramix in French, but Getafix in English because he's always
supplying drugs.. I mean magic potions to the protagonist.

Plus, there are other hilarious names like Unhygienix, Vitalstatistix and
Fulliautomatix.

~~~
andrepd
"Assurancetourix" is just fantastic. It was several years after first reading
that my child brain got it.

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Hasknewbie
"The year is 50 BC. The HN front page is entirely occupied by Silicon Valley
posts. Entirely? Well, not entirely. One small post about indomitable Gauls
still holds out..."

~~~
foobarge
You just won that thread. Congratulations.

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jacques_chester
I learned to read because of _Asterix & Obelix_ comics and my big sister's
keen sense for an efficient bargain.

She and I had a chore roster. We complained bitterly. We loathed every second.
We bickered over the exchange rate of dish washing and dish drying.

My sister struck on a brilliant scheme: in exchange for giving me the chores
she didn't like, she would read me the comics that our father had collected.

Since I didn't like doing her chores, I started paying attention to what she
said as she moved across the page. After a while I had grasped enough to do it
without her.

I guess, looking back, this was a sign of my fate as software engineer: I
worked hard to be lazy.

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rajekas
As an Indian who lives in the US, I am constantly amazed that Asterix is
mostly unknown here. Works out well for me though - every two years I walk
down to the closest public library, check out the entire series and play
Getmyasterixfix for a week.

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thibautg
I'm French-speaking and Asterix is all my childhood. 20+ years later I still
regularly say some jokes from the albums unconsciously.

Glad that our English-speaking friends benefit from such a high quality
translation! It's also always interesting to understand our cultural
differences through clichés, wordplay and jokes.

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mattkevan
I loved the Asterix books growing up - and I still do. I proudly have all the
Goscinny/Uderzo books on my shelves (alongside a complete set of Tintin). I’ve
read a few articles like this and each reinforces what a masterful job Anthea
Bell and Derek Hockridge did.

Similarly, I once read something about how hard it was to translate the
Discworld books into other languages, while maintaining a roughly comparable
level of jokes.

~~~
ur-whale
>Similarly, I once read something about how hard it was to translate the
Discworld books into other languages, while maintaining a roughly comparable
level of jokes.

Yeah, I've read some of Pratchett's work translated into other languages, it
was a huge let down.

~~~
bostik
Speaking of tricky conversions, the Finnish translation of _The Hitch-Hiker 's
Guide to the Galaxy_ is a heroic cultural treasure.

"Ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal", a word soup that in English is mix of
gaggy and absurd, has been transformed into "traalilainen sontiaismolottaja".
It's a rarity, a joke that ends up _better_ after translation.

Apologies for anyone not fluent in Finnish to appreciate the work.

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ur-whale
The Asterix comics have one truly endearing quality: they appeal to vastly
different age groups.

In other words, it can be read as a child as well as later in life and still
remain enjoyable.

Some of the jokes and drawings (eg Romans getting their a..es handout out to
them by Obelix) will make a 6 year old laugh, while others like "je suis
meduse" will strongly tickle adults catching the cultural reference.

A treasure, especially the ones written by Goscinny.

~~~
andrepd
>Some of the jokes and drawings (eg Romans getting their a..es handout out to
them by Obelix) will make a 6 year old laugh

For what's worth, they still do x) The casual nonchalant way he does it still
makes me laugh. And the puns, obviously the puns.

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foobarge
Asterix is nice - that's just scratching the surface of Belgian/French cartoon
though. In the same vein, I'd recommend you to dive into the work of masters
like Franquin, I really recommended it - the Marcinelle school let emerge many
great talents.

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microtherion
Asterix has humor on a variety of levels, some of which I completely missed as
a child (one of my favorite jokes as an adult:
[https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x67wk1z](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x67wk1z)).
The English translation seems to be quite good at capturing that.

A different style of genius in translation was by Erika Fuchs, the German
translator of Walt Disney cartoons. It has been argued that she added MORE
nuance to the translated language than there was in the original.

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andrepd
So great to see Astérix mentioned here. They were a big part of my childhood
(along with other staples of franco-belgian BD such as Tintin), and I expect
also part of the childhoods of millions of people across Europe and beyond.

I was fortunate enough to read them in a translation to a Romance language, so
many jokes carried over easily, and the overall sound and rhythm and "feel"
(maybe there's a better word) of the dialogue was preserved as well. To
achieve that across such a different language family deserves even more
praise!

~~~
enraged_camel
With noting that the cartoons are also very good. Several are available on
YouTube, for those looking for some trips down memory lane.

~~~
agumonkey
asterix' 12 tasks : the place that sends you mad
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEkUmYecnk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEkUmYecnk)

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bitofhope
What I find amazing about Astérix comic translations is how consistently good
they seem to be in every language. I don't think I've ever come across anyone
who said the translation to their native language was anything less than good,
and nearly all the translations localize things like character names and do it
well.

~~~
gerdesj
I don't know if it was fed through to all translations but the Latin bits in
the English version had me near wetting myself.

Handily, I studied Latin whilst in school.

Hic, haec, hoc _hic_ (If you don't get this then try drinking a few large ones
and have another go.)

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gumby
The publishers really worked hard to find good translators it seems. I had the
English and French ones as a kid, and read them both (missed most of the jokes
which meant reading them as I got older continued to be novel and exciting).
My kid read them in German, and then had the same amazement in reading them in
English, which got me to go read the German ones -- hilarious!

The translations are much better than the more workmanlike translations of
Tintin (though Hergé's text never reached the madcap level of Asterix).

I've wondered if many of the other translations were likewise locally funny.

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anotherevan
In the early 90s Australia, I worked with a Frenchman who was employed as an
English⇔Japanese translator (go figure).

I remember us reminiscing over Asterix one day and his mentioning what a
marvelous job was done translating it from French to English.

To be honest, in my ignorance I think that was when I discovered that English
was not the original language of the material!

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Darkstryder
I’m French and grew up on Asterix (in french). This article is wonderfully
weird to me. I love it.

I’m really glad the translation is that great. I’ll definitely recommend
Asterix to english-speaking friends in the future.

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netrus
For context: Anthea Bell recently died.

~~~
beforan
That's sad news. It was only yesterday!

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tech6
Also after listening to "history of Rome" podcast and then re reading asterix
it quite amazing how the authors have maintained historical accuracy in a
children's comic

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shlomi-noach
Asterix: "You make me sick talking about boars"

Obelix: "And you bore me talking about sickles"

(inexact quote from memory, Asterix and the Golden Sickle)

Absolutely priceless translation!

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DomreiRoam
If you did like the comics, the movie "ASTÉRIX & OBÉLIX: MISSION CLÉOPÂTRE"[1]
is quite funny. Alain Chabat was the director and a very famous humorist.

[1][https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/asterix_obelix_mission_cleo...](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/asterix_obelix_mission_cleopatre)?

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andrepd
I remember how the last one is translated to Portuguese (Romance language so
an easier time, but still by no means a walk in the park)! It makes a pun of
the word "fino", which can mean "posh, usually refers to someone trying really
hard to look respectable" (which is what the chief is recurringly obsessed
with w/ respect to his shield-bearers), and can also mean "a 33cl draught of
beer" (same as the second meaning in the original French text).

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ChuckMcM
I grew up reading Asterix in French and I think it allowed me to appreciate
the language more than I would have if I had only been exposed to it in a
classroom setting!

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tempodox
Asterix is the practical proof that comic is an art form, in an accessible,
non high brow way. Besides being hilariously entertaining.

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glibgil
I'm met with a racist depiction of a black man when I click on that link. Is
something wrong?

~~~
foreigner
Asterix is full of charicatures of racial and other stereotypes. It can be a
little uncomfortable to read today, but in the author's defense they were
fairly evenhanded. Look at the noses of the Gauls and Britons!

It's interesting that only some of those charicatures are offensive to us
today. (Not being critical of your comment, the portrayal of black people in
Asterix makes me uncomfortable too.)

