Harry Potter Got a Hawaiian Translation
If you miss reading about the adventures of Harry Potter, there’s now another way to follow the famous boy wizard.
University of Hawaii at Manoa faculty member Richard Keao NeSmith recently translated J.K. Rowling’s first book of the “Harry Potter” series to Hawaiian.
NeSmith, who teaches Tahitian language courses at UH, said it took about six weeks to translate the book titled “Harry Potter a Me Ka Pohaku Akeakamai.”
He completed the project while on a train from Paris to Barcelona.
“As I translate, I often hear the voice of my grandmother, whom I lived with growing up and who taught me Hawaiian,” he said, in a press release. “But I also hear the voices of other Hawaiian-speaking relatives and acquaintances. All of these voices help the way I translate.”
In addition to the first “Harry Potter” book, NeSmith has also translated J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”
NeSmith said he plains to translate the remaining “Harry Potter” books as well as the “Lord of the Rings” series.