Comparing the American and Arabic versions of Harry Potter

I’ve been reading the Arabic translation of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone”. I got it from the Loserville Central Library.

The Arabic translation is very faithful, I have discovered, and in general it is a word-for-word translation. But if you look carefully, you’ll find some deviations. Here’s some examples all from the scene of the Sorting Hat and Feast. It seems that there’s a handful of changes here and there scattered throughout.

The food at the Sorting Feast

American version: Harry’s mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamp chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.

Arabic version: Harry looked at the plates in front of him in wonder. He saw they were filled with food. There were many types of food that Harry didn’t think he could have seen any day on a single table .. different types of cooked things .. and grilled things of all types .. meat and chicken .. and pastries .. and sauces and ketchup .. and for some reason, there were also bags filled with sweet mints.

Dean Thomas

American version: Apparently, there is a mistake in the American version. After Harry is sorted, it both says that 3 people are left to be sorted, but then lists 4 people: Dean Thomas, Lisa Turpin, Ron Weasley, and Blaise Zabini.

Arabic/Swedish versions: both these versions correct this by completely omitting the sentence with Dean Thomas. I think it’s weird, because he’s a much more central character than Lisa Turpin. Why did they just change the number to “4 people were left to be sorted.”

The Sorting Hat song

American version: The song starts like this:

Oh, you may not think I’m pretty,
But don’t judge on what you see,
I’ll eat myself if you can find
A smarter hat than me.
You can keep your bowlers black,
Your top hats sleek and tall,
For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat
And I can cap them all …

And the song continues.

Arabic version: There are tweaks all throughout the song, because I think the translator was trying to keep things rhyming. For example, the first 4 lines translate as follow:

Oh, you probably think I’m not pretty
But .. don’t judge on what you see
Because you won’t find any prettier than me ..
For I am the queen of the beauties..

But in addition to that, Lines 4 through 8 are omitted entirely! After that, the song picks up again following the original quite closely.

“The pumpkin pastries felt ages ago”

American version: Right after the Sorting Hat is put away, “Harry looked down at this empty gold plate. He had only just realized how hungry he was. The pumpkin pastries felt ages ago.”

Arabic version: “Harry looked down at his empty gold plate .. and suddenly felt a strong hunger!”

That’s it. No mention of “The pumpkin pastries felt ages ago.”

The dessert at the Sorting Feast

American version: The remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the desserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs and jam donuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding …

Arabic version: The rest of the food disappeared from the plates, which returned to being clean and sparkling again .. and after a moment, there appeared desserts of all types .. ice cream in every flavor that could be thought of and [muhalbiya — I don’t know what that is] and cake and jam pastries and apples and strawberries and Jell-O and pudding and more.

Learning their way around the castle

In the chapter right after the Sorting Hat Feast, Harry and Ron are starting to learn their way around Hogwarts. There’s a sentence that says something like: “Peeves was worth two locked doors and a trap staircase if you met him while you were lost.” I guess that was too complicated to translate, because the Arabic version just says something like: “If you met Peeves while you were lost, it was the worst luck!” I have read the books in English so many times, that the original sentences just spring to my mind as I’m reading, even if I’m reading in Arabic. Especially if it was a vivid enough description. So I noticed that this was different.

Book 2

Update: All in all, the first book is a very word-for-word translation, it’s great. I’m starting to read book #2 now, Chamber of Secrets. I’m just one chapter in. They must have gotten a different translator for this one, because I can already see the difference. This one seems to be leaving out entire lines of dialogue, maybe even entire paragraphs of Harry’s thoughts.