Disney-comics digest #131.

[Geir.Hasnes@delab.sintef.no]

Even Flood wrote:
>In the story "The Lemming with a Locket" Barks makes a
>Norwegian pun! 
>
>When the Ducks enter the cheese shop after comming to Norway 
>there are some cheeses in the background labelled
>NORD-OST
>NORDOST
>This means northeast in Norwegian, but could also be the
>brand name of a cheese named Nordost or Northcheese. In this
>context "ost" means both cheese and east.
>
>It is remarkable that Barks made a pun in a foreign language
>that only Scandinavians would understand.
>It is even more remarkable that the labels were changed in
>the Norwegian edition. I do not remember what the labels read then,
>but I did not laugh.

The reason was that Barks for some time lived in Minnesota where he met a
lot of people of Norwegian ancestry with Norwegian customs. He was
intrigued by the lemmings, and when there is a huge wandering, it is nearly
as wild as he depicted it. They dont eat houses though.

The editors even changed the name of the country from Norway to "Ostandia".
This was a sort of pun - Ost is an old Norwegian way of writing "East", and
it is also the Norwegian word for Cheese. Sailing to East India a few
centuries ago, one referred to Ostindia, so Ostandia is a rewriting of that
so that both the focus on cheese is kept, and the fact that "Duck" in
Norwegian is "and". The Ducks travelled to the eastern Duck country. Well,
there were not many ducks in Ostandia so there was no other reason for the
pun than the trivial word connections. I find it disturbing that they
couldnt keep Norway, when it obviously must have been much funnier for the
Norwegian children that Donald & Co. were visiting their country! Sure I
wish to know the reason, but it will never be found.

And Barks also labelled another cheese "gjetost" in the original comic.
That is correct Norwegian for "goat (milk) cheese". The title "Larsens Ost"
means that the owner of the shop was called Larsen (common Norwegian
surname, means literally the son of Lars, which is a derivation of
Laurentius, - but the custom of making ones own surname of the Christian
name of ones father disappeared during the first half of this century - it
is still kept on Iceland) and the shop was for selling cheese. All the
labels - as I seem to remember - disappeared in the Norwegian translation -
I dont bring my comics to work, and I dont read Norwegian comics, except
that I read them for my children as a bedtime story. By the way: When the
weekly comic arrives with a Rosa story, my children and I have agreed not
to read it individually, but to spare it until bedtime when we can have the
joy of opening and reading it together, just like waiting for Christmas
before opening the Christmas gifts.

I will of course not state that all translated puns are bad ones. I
remember at least one occasion when the translator (in 1963) included puns
of his own, in the story where Scrooge travels to South America to find
muscat nuts. Donald was engaged as developer in the Foreign Aid Service -
the Development Help in literal Norwegian, so it makes sense to say that he
was a Developer, and Huey, Dewey and Louie was coworking as
Underdevelopers. I dont know whether Americans make use of the prefix
Under- in a relation between a boss and his nearer assistants. But it is a
perfect pun in Norwegian to send Underdevelopers to a Underdeveloped
country.

I also agree that the editors try to make use of modern expressions
sometimes to make the language more up-to-date. What I would state is that
the poetry and natural rhytm and music of Barks language is terribly
absent. It really depends on a good writer to make good stories, and so:
the translators cannot wreck a good story, but they can definitely make it
flatter. Rosas language is much richer in the US comics than in the
Norwegian ones.

I shall see if I can come up some more good examples once.

Geir Hasnes