In a hurry for Harry

Here's a story from the German ingenuity file. It's a bit over a month old, so no longer entirely current, but I have only just come across it and I think it's cool and worth spreading the word about.

In July of this year, Germany, just like the States, the UK, New Zealand, etc., was gripped by Harry Potter fever with the release of Harry Potter 6. The only problem was, it didn't come out in German at that stage, only in English. And yet, we had Harry Potter fans queuing up for their copies, in English, of the new novel, as well as countless newspaper articles about the release. Unfortunately for the poor Germans whose English was not good enough to allow them to read a thick fantasy novel in English, they had to wait 77 days - the time that the German translator needed to get HP6 translated and onto the shelves.

Observant readers will have noted that that 77 day cooling off period is not yet over, and the poor Germans are still waiting for HP6 in their native tongue to be released. Not all of them though, because an ingenious cooperative group of die-hard fans banded together to do an unofficial translation into German in just 45 hours. The Guardian has the story. It's only short, so I've included it in its entirety:

Thousands of German Harry Potter fans who could not wait for the latest JK Rowling epic to be published in their own language have translated the book in less than two days.

The "hobby translators" were too impatient to wait the 77 days required by German translator Klaus Fritz to complete the task and logged on to Harry-auf-Deutsch.de to finish the job in 45 hours.

To avoid any legal threats, the fans have pledged not to distribute their efforts to any third parties.

The "Harry in German" internet club is plastered with messages from members praising the idea. One member, Starlight, said: "My best friend thought translating some HP would be a good way to practise my English."

But it is not only students who have contributed to the patchwork translation. A 50-year-old mechanic said he took part to "prevent the brain from rusting".

Carlsen publishing house, however, is not amused. Spokeswoman Katrin Hogrebe told German news portal Netzeitung: "We would not cast judgment if we were talking about a group of people translating together in their kitchen."

She added that any violation of copyright laws would be legally acted upon.

[Source: The Guardian.]

For those readers who can read German, the Harry auf Deutsch website is here. No doubt for copyright reasons, the final product of the team translation is not available, but the message boards make for pretty amazing reading.

Copyright concerns aside, I think this is kind of cool. I've never read any of the Harry Potter books, and I'm not in much of a hurry to do so, but I'm not one of those types who pour scorn on HP fans. But it's not the fanaticism which impresses me, it's the cooperative nature of the project - thousands of hobby translators - and especially the rapidity with which they managed the task. Without having seen the final product, I can't of course pass judgement on the quality of the translation, though I must confess to being somewhat sceptical about how high the standard of translation and especially the consistency throughout the text could possibly be. I wouldn't go out and buy it, even if it were commercially available, but it is kind of nice to know that some people care enough and are keen enough to come up with their own translation of a book they are desperate to read. Good on them, I say.