Naughty words in Huck Finn

[kev67]

It is odd in a book that contains so many instances of the word 'nigger' that its author had to censor his writing to avoid blasphemy. I must be slow on the uptake because although I was slightly puzzled to see these substitute phrases, I did not catch on that was what they were. I thought they were just unfamiliar phrases from 19th century America.

My land = My lord.
Dad fetch it = God damn it.
Blame = Damn.

[Dreamwoven]

English tends to be like that. Very silly, in my view.

[kev67]

I wonder how those words and phrases are translated into other languages. How is nigger translated into French? How is 'Dad fetch it' translated into Japanese? Are translators and publishers nervous about how these words are translated?

[Danik 2016]

I can´t remember if I first read The adventures of Huckleberry Finn in English or in Portuguese. I don´t remember noticing these "naughty" expressions or euphemism either but they certainly are a challenge for the translators.

[kev67]

Another thing that must be difficult to translate are the accents, in particular Jim's, because he has a black slave's accent. Brazil had slavery in the 19th century. If the book was translated into Portuguese, would they translate Jim's speech into Brazilian slave's? In Russia, they had serfs instead of slaves, but they were the same race as their owners. Would Jim be given a serf's accent? Huck and Jim don't speak the same way. What is Huck's accent? It sounds a bit southern, but he comes from north east Missouri. He sounds a bit Appalachian.He sounds a bit cowboy old-timer too.

Edit: according to Mark Twain's explanatory note, Huck Finn speaks in an extreme backwoods South Western dialect, Jim speaks in a Missouri Negro accent, and most the other characters speak a variation of the Pike County accent.

[Danik 2016]

Interesting question, kev. I just looked up a Brazilian edition of the book. It´s a reference translation, because the translator is Monteiro Lobato, one of our great writers of the beginning of 20 C. Monteiro Lobato avoided this question of slang and accent by making the characters (including Jim) talk in educated Portuguese.

[kev67]

I just finished reading it and I thought it was great. Genuinely funny and interesting, historically speaking. I would be interested to know how American educators teach the book. It does contain that very naughty word, and a lot of it is about slavery and racism, which is a very touchy subject. It would be a good book to read out if you can do accents, but even then a teacher might find himself in hot water. I can imagine teachers having to complete a risk assessment before teaching the book.

[kev67]

Answering my own question about teaching the book, and also commenting on the Huck Finn edited - despicable thread:

For the children's version, just substitute 'slave' or some other less offensive word for 'nigger', but explain in the introduction somewhere that in the original edition the word was 'nigger'. Job done, you can teach it in schools. Mark Twain or someone else already bowdlerized the book by replacing blasphemous phrases with similar sounding non-blasphemous phrases. I think I read in the introduction that Mark Twain's wife censored quite a bit too, including many of Twain's favourite passages. At least 90% of the problem with that book is just the repeated use of that word. For most kids it's just school work anyway, when they'd rather be playing video games or listening to music.