Richard Adams through Russian Eyes :))
I think my English-speaking friends ought to know this, it may make them laugh.
Consider the title 'Watership Down'. It seems to have given a strong headache to generations of Russian translators. Here are some nice title variants to choose from:
The Ship Hills: Well, 'water'+'ship' equals 'ship'... kind of. :)
The Inhabitants of Hills: Get rid of the strange word altogether!
The Great Journey of the Rabbits: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit?
Watership Lowland, Watership Decline: Well, it says 'Down' on the cover, doesn't it? And why should 'Down' mean 'Up'?
(thanks to petro_gulak for much of this information)
They are not all proper translations, some just occur in literary encyclopedias and other kinds of reference books.
The film fared even worse, because film translators are the kind of no-nonsense people that think that 'friendship' is a sort of vessel, and translate 'Beowulf' as 'Biowolf', so they have come up with a couple more jewels:
The Departed Ship: Are we talking Grey Havens here?
The Sinking of the Ship: Black Hawk Down, Watership Down - see our collection of war movies!
Consider the title 'Watership Down'. It seems to have given a strong headache to generations of Russian translators. Here are some nice title variants to choose from:
The Ship Hills: Well, 'water'+'ship' equals 'ship'... kind of. :)
The Inhabitants of Hills: Get rid of the strange word altogether!
The Great Journey of the Rabbits: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit?
Watership Lowland, Watership Decline: Well, it says 'Down' on the cover, doesn't it? And why should 'Down' mean 'Up'?
(thanks to petro_gulak for much of this information)
They are not all proper translations, some just occur in literary encyclopedias and other kinds of reference books.
The film fared even worse, because film translators are the kind of no-nonsense people that think that 'friendship' is a sort of vessel, and translate 'Beowulf' as 'Biowolf', so they have come up with a couple more jewels:
The Departed Ship: Are we talking Grey Havens here?
The Sinking of the Ship: Black Hawk Down, Watership Down - see our collection of war movies!