Icelandic

[desayunoencama]

Googling myself in Icelandic, since it was supposed to come out last month although we haven't yet seen our author copies, I came across this listing for the Icelandic edition of LA AVENTURA DE CECILIA Y EL DRAGÓN.

It looks like CECILIA is now named SYLVIA.

The book is called SILVIA OG DREKKIN in Icelandic.

Hope we get our copies soon!
:-)

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

Heh. I wonder if Sylvia is on the list of approved names for Icelanders. Said list exists, as I understand it, in part because Icelandic names take on cases depending on their part of speech, and not all names decline well. Though there's also a national identity component to it, I think, and immigrants are required to take on Icelandic names.

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Interesting on the declination of names and the official list.

What do they do with foreign names, then? The author of translated titles, for instance. When declining them, I mean. (

[janni.livejournal.com]

That's a good question.

And you know, Harry Potter remains Harry Potter in Icelandic (http://www.galdrasyning.is/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=625&Itemid=46), so maybe that isn't the whole story.

Or maybe Harry Potter is so well known a name they work around it? But I think this was true for other known series I saw translated when I was there, too.

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Actually, Harry Potter is something of a unique problem for translators, because of the merchandising. Foreign translators are not allowed to translate the names of the sweets at Hogsmeade, for instance, because there is international merchandise of said sweets. And so on.

It's also worth noting that almost all Icelanders speak at least some English, if not fluently (for those under a certain age).