English Translations of Asterix - Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation

Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge have been widely praised for their rendition of the English language edition, maintaining the spirit and humour of the original even when direct translation is impossible — as it often is when translating puns between languages which are not closely related. A good example occurs in Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield — when Obelix redistributes the water in the spa pools by diving in, the other guests complain and the druid in charge arrives asking Vitalstatistix, "Where are your Gauls?" In the original French he responds Mes Gaulois sont dans la pleine ("My Gauls are in the full one") which is a play on a famous (in French) quote Les Gaulois sont dans la plaine ("The Gauls are on the plain") which of course sounds almost exactly the same, though not in English. Instead the translated reply is "Pooling your resources" (the water), a clever double entendre on a common phrase even though the original pun is lost. L'avoir pleine also is a common French phrase for "to have one's fill", maybe a reference to the druid's potion.

Sometimes nothing of the original joke is salvageable. In Asterix in Britain, there is a scene in Londinium where a greengrocer argues with a buyer — in the next panel Obelix says (in French), "Why is that man wearing a melon?" This relies on the fact that the French word for melon is also the name for the iconic British bowler hat; with no way to convey this in the English translation, in the British edition Obelix says, "I say, Asterix, I think this bridge is falling down" referring to the children's rhyme "London bridge is falling down", leaving the original joke incomplete. In the panel shown, the reply of the British man on the right was "Rather, old fruit!", in some publications of the book; a good pun and typical of the way the British address each other in Asterix in Britain. In the same book, much of the humor came from Goscinny's high-fidelity rendition of the English language using French words. This, of course, is totally lost by retranslation in English, but compensated for by making the British characters speak in an antiquated, early-twentieth-century style.

Sometimes the translators even go further and add humor of their own when it is appropriate. An example of this is in Asterix and the Goths, where a group of Goths who kidnapped Getafix run puzzled through a forest populated by Romans looking for Asterix and Obelix, who they think are responsible for the kidnapping. In the original, the Goth chief says "Faut pas chercher à comprendre", meaning "We shouldn't try to understand", a common French phrase with no particular pun attached. In the English version, the chief instead comments "Ours is not to reason why", a reference to The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, which states in its third stanza "Theirs not to reason why/Theirs but to do and die".

In earlier translations, such as in Ranger/Look and Learn, other versions of names have appeared. Panoramix remained the name of the Druid, while the village chieftain became Tunabrix (ton of bricks). Some of these were used in early English-language versions of cartoon movies.