In which countries?/To which languages?

[Halbarad-Ir]

I posted this thread to know:"in how many countries and to how many languages, in what names, has the Lord of the Rings and other Tolkien books been translated?"
I start: In Iran and to Persian:
Lord of the rings:ارباب حلقه ها which is pronaunced: Arbab-e Halghe-ha
Silmarillion
Hobbit

[The Might]

You might want to check THIS (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=14207) thread here, that deals pretty much with the same topic.
Just a thought. :)

btw, isn't it hard for you to type? can you type English and Arab with the same keyboard? just curious.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

There is a comprehensive (and *very* long) list in Hammond & Scull: maybe if I find a lot of free time I'll key it in here.

[Halbarad-Ir]

You might want to check THIS (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=14207) thread here, that deals pretty much with the same topic.
Just a thought. :)

btw, isn't it hard for you to type? can you type English and Arab with the same keyboard? just curious.

I didn't type Arabic!!!:confused: This is Persian (or Farsi)
and of course it's not so hard, when the Farsi language is installed!!!:cool:

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

But Farsi is written in the Perso-Arabic script, thus from right to left, or isn't it? If so, then when you change the language, you also automatically change the course of writing? Or you do type it from left to right?

[Lalwendë]

I'd like to know how you can get hold of the editions in other languages as I often think it would be a fab way of learning something of another language - or am I fooling myself that I really do have that much of Lord of the Rings memorised? ;)

I'd like a German and a Welsh edition, plus the Swedish or Finnish ones with those Tove Jansson illustrations - the latter more for the pics admittedly ;)

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Hmmm. Just a thought, maybe if I get enough of LotR memorized I can read it in another language and read it and know exactly whats going on...
Someone should translate LotR into elvish or another one of Tolkien's languages. I would like to read it in hobbitish since I have this thing for hobbits, but I don't think Tolkien invented a hobbitish language in written form.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Here's the list (as of 2005) of languages into which The Lord of the Rings has been translated:

Albanian, Armenian, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, Faroese, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (European), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish and Ukrainian.

Sadly, the list doesn't include any of the tongues of Southern Asia: Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Hindi, Tamil etc.

[Child of the 7th Age]

I have seen copies of the Hobbit in Farsi (but not LotR or Silm) actually available for sale online but nothing in Hindi, Urdu, etc. Sometimes it's hard to get hold of such copies to buy, even if they exist, if you live outside a particular country.

Harry Potter is easily available in Arabic. We have six volumes in our house belonging to my son. I've also seen at least six of Rowling's books translated into Urdu and Farsi. Anyone know or can venture a guess why those made it into translation before the Hobbit or LotR?

Lal -

I have been collecting "foreign" Hobbits for a while, especially the illustrated ones. If you'd like to buy translations, you might want to try this link: http://www.neko.com/ebayTolkien.html The site is updated every day and lists all the traslations of Tolkien available on ebay. Another helpful link for Tolkien translations is this one: http://multilingualbooks.com/tolkien.html This online bookshop carries a number of titles from across the world. Also, the online Tolkien Shop (from Holland) is very good for European publications: http://www.tolkienshop.com/. If you click on Hobbit or LotR, for example, you'll see there's a special button for translations.

[Lalwendë]

Fab! Cheers!

Now that's interesting - why is The Hobbit entitled Der kleine Hobbit in German? In other words, The Little Hobbit?

I see there is no Welsh version which is a shame, given Tolkien's interest in the language. However there is a Breton version, which would be interesting!

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Lal, "Der kleine Hobbit" is the older translation, which was obviously geared to a children's audience. The diminutive was apparently thought necessary, as the word "hobbit" in itself is new and strange to readers. The illustration on the cover, which includes a dragon with butterfly wings (rather small, if the scale is true, as the spider beside it is not tiny - unless, of course, it is a descendant of Ungoliath), almost equals the infamous bulbed trees of LotR paperback fame. In 1998, Wolfgang Krege (whose new translation of the LotR is controversial) retranslated it and it was published as "Der Hobbit".

[Alfirin]

[

I'd like a German and a Welsh edition, plus the Swedish or Finnish ones with those Tove Jansson illustrations - the latter more for the pics admittedly ;)[/QUOTE]

That makes two of us at least vis-a-vis the Jansson version.

As for aquisition of foriegn editions, and seach through the e-bay store collections might be renumeriative. I know for a fact that several of the easter European dealers have copies of some of the old Russian and Eastern European edtions. Admnitted they are not cheap, even less so with shipping to here but they are available. below find a list of some I saw in the last few minutes

baron777 (Latvia) : Roverandom (in Lativian), The Fellowship of the ring and the two towers, (both in Russian), the Hobbit (Latvian)

zulfia_ru (Russia): Hobbit (Russain) Lord OTR plus hobbit (Russian)

ankara2001$ (Turkey): LOTR (Turkish)

Haarick (Estonia): A Lot of diffenet Tolkiens mostly in Russain a few in Lativan or Estonian

Russain and Ukraina books (Ukraine): Hobbit (Russain) Guide to Tolkien (In Russain)

Other undoubetly exist this is just a quick list of the ones from those sellers I already had on file.

[Ghazi]

But Farsi is written in the Perso-Arabic script, thus from right to left, or isn't it? If so, then when you change the language, you also automatically change the course of writing? Or you do type it from left to right?

Persian is written and typed from right to left. I don't understand your question though.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Well, I mean that when you are typing on the computer, let's say in Word or some other application, or here on the forum, then the text writes itself from left to right. Halbarad said that it's not a problem to type in Farsi if the language is installed, which is ok, it just depends on font - however, to type it correctly, you'll need that the text wrote itself from right to left (unless you want to type the words backwards). So my question was, if when you change the - language on the language panel, I presume - if the application also starts typing from right to left. I know that some programs can do that, but my question was if the whole operation system for the native let's say Persian or Arabic speakers is configured to do that.

[Wanderer of Light]

Isn't the German lotr called 'der Herr der ringe' or something? I recall that the Dutch lotr is called 'In de ban van de Ring' which is all but a translation actually.... I'm not exactly sure how to translate 'In de ban van de Ring' to English, I'm afraid.....:(

And about the Arabic-Persian font... It suppose it is just programmed in the font that it's going from right to left... shouldn't be that hard to do.....

[William Cloud Hicklin]

The Dutch and the first Swedish translations were published without Tolkien's supervision or access to his work "Nomenclature" aka "Guide to Names in the Lord of the Rings."

[Mithalwen]

I see there is no Welsh version which is a shame, given Tolkien's interest in the language. However there is a Breton version, which would be interesting!

I had a Welsh friend from Uni on the french studies course and he claimed Breton and Welsh were basically the same ... I don't know how reliable that information is since he tended to be stronger than style than substance... :cool:

The last time I went to France I bought the first three Harry Potters as a way to encourage myself to read in French again but the way they translated the names annoyed me ... next time I will get LOTR if I dare ...

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Historically Welsh and Breton are closely linked, being the modern descendants of the native Brythonic of pre-Saxon Britain: some refugees fled to the Armorican peninsula of Gaul and founded "Little Britain" or Brittany.

Closely related also, for the same reason, is (or was) Cornish; and it is reported that as recently as the 19th century Cornish and Breton fishermen in the Channel could converse with ease, so perhaps it is much the same with Welsh.