Swedes and character names in strange languages

[Lars Jensen]

Sigvald wrote:

> "Jeg, Mikke Mus" (=Io Topolino) [...] contained a list of the names of
> several Disney Characters in various languages. In the Norwegian
> version of the book these languages are:
> Norwegian, English, French, German, Danish, Italian, Jugoslav(*),
> Greek, Japanese and Arabian.
> (*) An obvious insult against the readers intelligence as the correct
> would have been "Serbo-Croatian", just as we speak about "Dutch" not
> "Netherlandic" or "Hollandic" and about "Hebrew", not "Israelic".

Sigvald, sometimes I think you go around looking for reasons to be
insulted. As a historian, you must know that Yugoslavia in the 1970s was
part of the East Bloc and thus (by Western countries) hardly was
perceived to be a country in its own right. That the book even mentioned
the names in "Yugoslavian", rather than the language of some Western
country, is a small (positive) surprise in itself.

> Perhaps the people in the Swedish redaction by then (in the 1970s) was
> thinking like some Swedes in DCML of today - that some Asian "rubble"
> is as interesting as their own Swedish names. Well let me just tell
> all Swedes this: for Norwegian and I bet also Danish readers of any
> age, Asian "rubble" is definitely *not* as interesting as Swedish
> names!

You'd lose that bet.

I was very interested by Rich Bellacera's list of characters in the
"Disney Character names in Chinese" thread. Looking at it, I see such
favorites of mine as Fethry Duck and Madam Mim are mentioned - implying
(to me, at least) that stories featuring them are being printed in
China. That's *much* more interesting to me than what the name of, say,
Daisy Duck is in Sweden - I already know stories featuring her are being
used all over Scandinavia, so what information could I get out of
knowing her Swedish name?

Personally, I'm puzzled by why you would fault the Swedish editorial
group in the 1970s for something the *Norwegian* editorial group of that
time failed to do - namely include the Swedish names in the Norwegian
edition. Care to explain why?

Also, I'm puzzled by the line you draw from the Swedish 1970s editorial
group to today's Swedish members of the DCML, blaming the latter for the
former's (alleged) mistakes:

> much of this postings is ironically written by Swedes who IMO should
> clean their own house before taking care of other people's business.

As you probably know, the Barks story "Lost in the Andes!" (about the
square eggs) underwent a not-too-well-received second translation when
it was used in the Norwegian 1974 "Jeg, Donald Duck" book. Using your
own logic, I'm going to blame *you* for that fiasco. On behalf of
*serious* Donaldis everywhere I expect to get an apology from you
regarding that mess.

Oh, and calling languages you don't understand "rubble" is utter
nonsense. I don't understand Nepalese, for instance, and I'm still
pretty sure it makes sense if one knows the language!

> I won't claim there is a line from the 1970's Swedish and Finnish
> redaction to modern DCML'ers from the same countries,

And yet, you did.

> but other people here may say so now.

Who, for instance?

Lars