ragbag:

languages are you

just as the family in the swiss family robinson was not named robinson in the book, the 7 dwarfs from snow white and the 7 dwarfs also had no names until disney got involved. these now iconic dwarf aptronyms have since been translated into every language in which disney has found a market and i have made it my morning’s duty to translate them back.

i was reading an old book once that had the very curious phrase “translated out of german” on its title page. i assumed “out of” was just a colloquialism for the much more standard “from” but it wasn’t until i was discussing it with a friend that i learned what it actually meant. apparently the original text was written in latin, then translated into german, and the book i was reading was a translation out of it [into english]. it was the whisper-down-the-lane method of literature!

this dwarf chart is thus a translation out of various languages back to english.

ie. dopey (english) > cucciolo (italian) > puppy (english)

i used google translate for all the terms and was pleased at the proficiency of its engine. when i entered the list of 7 names, it would immediately recognise them as disney’s dwarfs and give me a perfect translation. entering each name separately, without context was the only way to get google to stumble.

you wonder how the utopian present leads to the dystopian future? i’m not totally certain, however it probably has something to do with google robots trying to foil my understanding of forest dwarfs and their associated personalities.

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i used this list and various ask yahoo! posts to determine the dwarf names in other languages.

Guide to Naming Your Game

Every newspaper in New York spells Qaddafi’s name differently, so I figured I’d look it up on Wikipedia. They really cleared it up for me.

-iamjohnellis

via Kurt White

266 names from rap, organized.

Just ordered this poster!