{"id":88484,"date":"2018-12-10T12:57:19","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T22:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=88484"},"modified":"2018-12-10T12:57:55","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T22:57:55","slug":"harry-potter-olelo-hawaii-translation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2018\/12\/10\/harry-potter-olelo-hawaii-translation\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Potter and the \u02bb\u014dlelo Hawai\u02bbi translation"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\"book<\/p>\n

“ʻAʻole<\/span> i lohe ʻo<\/span> Harry Potter no ke Kula Hogwart i ke kau ʻana<\/span> mai o nā leka ma ka moena ʻīpuka<\/span> o mua o ka hale ma ka helu ʻehā,<\/span> Alanui Pilikino. (Harry Potter doesn’t know the first thing about Hogwarts when the letters start dropping onto the doormat at number four, Privet Drive.)”<\/em><\/p>\n

Harry Potter fans now have another way to enjoy the adventures of the famous boy wizard—in ʻōlelo<\/span> Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>. University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa<\/a> faculty member Richard Keao NeSmith<\/strong> has released Harry Potter a Me Ka P\u014dhaku Akeakamai<\/em><\/a>, an ʻōlelo<\/span> Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> (Hawaiian language) translation of J.K. Rowling\u2019s Harry Potter and the Philosopher\u2019s Stone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

NeSmith, who teaches Tahitian language courses in UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s Department of Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures<\/a>, said it took about six weeks to translate the book. He finished the project on a train from Paris to Barcelona. “It really felt like I was in the story with Harry Potter at the end of the first book,” he said.<\/p>\n

NeSmith\u2019s interest in translating ʻōlelo<\/span> Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> is personal. For him, it\u2019s an exercise that engages the integration, comparison and contrasting of cultures and languages. “As I translate, I often hear the voice of my grandmother, whom I lived with growing up and who taught me Hawaiian,” he said. “But I also hear the voices of other Hawaiian-speaking relatives and acquaintances; all of these voices help the way I translate.”<\/p>\n

As I translate, I often hear the voice of my grandmother, whom I lived with growing up and who taught me Hawaiian.
—Richard Keao NeSmith<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Kauaʻi<\/span> native\u2019s work translating books into ʻōlelo<\/span> Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> dates back to when he worked in UH<\/abbr> Hilo\u2019s Hale Kuamoʻo<\/span>, an office that produced books for Hawaiian immersion schools. “There were Hawaiian classics published in the 1800s about moments in the life of Kamehameha and other cultural heroes,” said NeSmith. “Ironically, some books were first printed in English, and I translated them into Hawaiian.”<\/p>\n

An email from Evertype Publishing<\/a> in 2012 took his career and academic path in a new direction. “Evertype asked if I would translate the first Alice into Hawaiian as part of a larger project to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the first release of that book. I was then asked to deliver a keynote at the Alice 150 conference in New York in 2015 about the experience of translating that book into Hawaiian.” The rest, they say, is history.<\/p>\n

NeSmith has also translated the ʻōlelo<\/span> Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> version of The Little Prince by French writer Antoine de Saint-Exup\u00e9ry. Other translated books include J.R.R. Tolkien\u2019s The Hobbit<\/em><\/a> and Lewis Carroll\u2019s Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland<\/em><\/a> and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There<\/em><\/a> and L. Frank Baum\u2019s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Translating Lewis Carroll was intriguing, according to NeSmith. “He was at the forefront of the literary nonsense genre in the mid-1800s and, at the same time here in Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>, there was an explosion of production of translations from western literature,” NeSmith said. He plans to translate the rest of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series.<\/p>\n

Harry Potter a me Ka P\u014dhaku Akeakamai: Harry Potter and the Philosopher\u2019s Stone in Hawaiian (Hawaiian Edition)<\/em> is available at Amazon<\/a> and in local bookstores that carry Hawaiian books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa’s Richard Keao NeSmith released a Hawaiian language translation of J.K. Rowling\u2019s Harry Potter and the Philosopher\u2019s Stone<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[1057,1351,158,9],"class_list":["post-88484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-hawaiian-language","tag-indo-pacific-languages-and-literatures","tag-publication","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t