I agree with you Rose, a lot of things could have been better. Sometimes I have the feeling that the Italian editor doesn’t put enough attention to details, as if they were just kids’ books with little importance. But we also have to consider the fact that the whole saga is extremely complex and some things couldn’t be worked out properly before further details were given in the next books. Personally, I stopped reading the Italian versions long ago, but it’s frustrating to think how much the readers who can’t read in English are missing out. Still this is a problem every foreign book has (not only Harry Potter), in every language they get translated.

That said, I repeat I’m pleased with the title—OK, it spoils a bit, but not that much really. “The Gifts of Deaths” sounds creepy enough, still it doesn’t hint at any religious or sacred meanings, which any other translation of “Hallows” would have erroneously had.

If none of you had read DH before, would you really be spoiled by this title? I would have interpreted as an ominous title (giving you the “gift of death” sounds more like you’re getting killed than Death giving you a present). Plus it’s plural, and once you start reading the book and the first casualty goes pretty early on, you’d think the title is well deserved.

I speak spanish and I understood everything in that textbox due to the similarity of the languages, except for ‘doni’ which was the key word to understand. Maybe death giving you gifts is the first thing that pops to mind when pronounced in italian. Some italians here should ask friends who haven’t read the book what they understand from the title the first time they hear it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if in spanish we end up with ‘HP y las reliquias de la muerte’. Reliquia means ‘relic’ but it has more to do with an old, ancient, even historical thing than with religion.

el caz (nice name!) you got the point: in Italian “Doni” sounds more like “presents” than “gifts”... so in my head the title sounds just like Harry Potter and the Presents of Death and I figure to myself this awkward scene with a merry Death carrying a bagful of presents à la Santa Claus…

Well, El Caz, “relics” actually means “something which has been left after the death of a Saint or of a hero” according to the Italian dictionary. I read the (wonderful) book this summer and I started my own translation as one of my language student’s excercises. I used the word “Doni” (gifts) from the beginning, as I thougt it was far more faithful to the story than “reliquie” (relics)... I think it makes more sense ;) And, of course, I think “talisman” would have been even better (good job laugranger ;))

I don’t know… I got ‘dead women’ when I tried the translator, which obviously doesn’t make sense. ‘The gifts of death’ makes more sense, although it definitely gives some away… but I’m sure people are going to agonize over the title anyway… If you think about it, ‘gifts of death’ could be taken as an ominous sign, particularly concerning Harry. But I like the title anyway. I might like it better than ‘Deathly Hallows’, almost…Well, not quite. But it’s my favorite translation so far.

I am Italian.

It literally means “Harry Potter and the Gifts of Death.”

ITALIAN LESSONS FOR BEGINNERS

1 Morte noun, it means DEATH

2 MORTE feminine plural of the italian adjective MORTO (that is to say: DEAD), so it CAN be translated as “dead feminine beings”, but this is not the case… ;)

oh gawd how I hate those dreadful PC translators…

(sorry… this is the teacher inside me…)

My last word on the title: for me it would be much better “talismani”, because I don’t like the word “doni”, but… this is just my opinion… :)

Any way you put it, translations will give something away. Calling the hallows ‘talismans’ or ‘relics’ immediately implies the hallows are small objects or old saintly/holy ones, which wasn’t the case with the original title. The hallows could have been just about anything, from “holy” places to statues to large buildings to whatever. We were left in a complete blank.

The one spoiling bit ‘presents/gifts of death’ gives away is that ‘Death’ gave them away. But what did it give away? Cars? Elephants? any kind of object or something more subtle and abstract and sinister (it’s Death after all) like… I don’t know. Extreme sadness. Despair. Death itself. Gonorrhea.

When you look at it that way, “presents of death” doesn’t give that much away, only who the giver is. But the presents themselves remain a mystery.

Then again, Harry got (given back) the invisibility Cloak as a christmas ‘present’ from the man who almost was the master of ‘death’ at the moment. I wonder if anyone who hasn’t read the book yet could make the connection with just the title.

It means “the gifts of Death.” In italian, french and spanish, Death is a feminine noun. It’s an interesting take on either the “relics” or “hallows.”

I think that what the Italian title misses most is the double-entendre of “deathly”, which is both “of Death” (=”della morte”) and “mortal” (=”mortale”). Until you sit and listen to the story at Lovegood House, you can’t imagine that Death herself will be giving Hallows, you can’t know that “Death” (personified) and “giving” (“doni” means “presents”) are involved. As to the proper translation, I quite agree that “le reliquie della morte” wasn’t THE right one (though “reliquie” was related to saints etc. only by Christianity and anyway I suppose the point would have been just its magical, somehow hol(e)y, aura; something more like “artifacts”, in short). Still, “i talismani della morte” would be too revealing, since it would anyway use “della morte”, so personifying Death. Instead, some expression where “DELLA morte” (= of Death) or rather “DI morte” (= of death, without capital ‘d’, then a common-noun expression) is felt to be part of a common expression, thus not referring only to D-eath but d-eath in general, should have been used. I was thinking of “HP e i pegni di morte” where “pegni” can not only mean, literally, “pawns”, but also remind of something like “gifts” (especially when “forced”); what’s more, it evokes ancient phrasings and can be also interpreted as “the gifts of D-eath” (when that chapter has been finally read!). After all, on this same way, I could have partially accepted “HP e i doni DI morte” where a) Death is not completely personified and b) the phrase “dono di morte” has been used in Italian literature with general and not-personified meaning (e.g. by Salvatore Quasimodo, translating Catullus’s “munere mortis”) and as such can be felt by Italian audience. Unfortunately, all our suggestions won’t produce anything but “Dusky Halos” around the official title (about the Italian translator, I’ll just mention her translation of “locket” – I mean, THAT locket, the precious, important, crucial “locket” that all of us know – which she interpreted by ear as “lucchetto”, i.e. “padlock”!).

Good analysis, Uranius.

I switched to english copies of the books not only because of the time it took for the translated copies to come out but also to read it in it’s original language without going through someone else’s interpretation. Translations can lead to misunderstandings and some jokes or clues are usually bound to the pronunciation or exact spelling of words. Also, songs never really rhyme.

A friend of mine went to an english spoken conference one day. They had a woman who would translate everything through the use of headphones, for those who didn’t speak english. My friend says her voice sounded like she was really bored and when the moderator spoke about the ‘human being’, the woman translated it as ‘El frijol humano’ which literally means ‘the human bean’.

She did it three more times before noticing her mistake.

Should we interpret the lengthy publisher’s note entitled “In risposta alle mail dei fan di Harry Potter” as an implication that the publisher is responding to criticisms of the translations, and this time is determined to take the necessary time to do a better job? ”...per noi non significa fare il più velocemente possibile, ma il meglio possibile.”

uranius, you’re analysis was just great! I would just like to add a little thing: Before reading the book, many of us were thinking of these possibilities for what “The Deathly Hallows” meant: 1 – obviously the horcruxes 2 – Hallows= spirits, so the deathly hallows would be “Mortal spirits” so… maybe Inferi? 3 – Hallows= spirits, who are dead, and so, maybe… SIrius, James and Lily?

These three possibilities are not included in the italian title and that’s another reason why it is not a good choice.

But… where is Salani’s note? I can’t find it…

I found this note: http://www.salani.it/sal-comunicati.asp (02/08/2007), though it is not related to the translation but to the release date for Italy.

That note (02/08/2007) from Salani says, in part:

“Il lavoro di traduzione di Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows è cominciato immediatamente…

...non abbiamo voluto spezzettare il testo del settimo libro di Harry Potter e affidarlo a più traduttori, con rischi che ben si possono immaginare, come ipotizziamo stia avvenendo all’estero, e in particolare in quei Paesi dove la grande diffusione dell’inglese ha costretto gli editori a comprimere i tempi di traduzione per esigenze di mercato…

...il che per noi non significa fare il più velocemente possibile, ma il meglio possibile.”