Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone |
Chapter 5: Diagon Alley
(For the romanisation of Chinese and Japanese, see Transliteration. To understand the writing systems of CJV, see Writing Systems. For word order notes, see Word Order)
Where a Vietnamese word has been borrowed from Chinese, the original Chinese characters are shown in parentheses.
| Chinese (Mainland) | 对角巷 Duìjiǎo-xiàng |
对角 duìjiǎo = 'diagonal'. 巷 xiàng = 'alley'. |
Diagonal alley |
| Chinese (Taiwan) | 斜角巷 Xiéjiǎo-xiàng |
斜角 xiéjiǎo = 'oblique angle'. 巷 xiàng = 'alley'. |
Oblique angle alley |
| Japanese | ダイアゴン横町 Daiagon Yokochō |
ダイアゴン Daiagon = 'Diagon'. 横町 yokochō = 'alley'. |
Diagon Alley |
| Vietnamese | Hẻm xéo | hẻm = 'alley'. xéo = 'oblique/slanting'. |
Oblique alley |
The Chinese, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese versions all try to reproduce the meaning of the English original, i.e., 'diagonal'.
The Japanese version simply gives a phonetic rendition of the alley's English name, i.e., Diagon, which means nothing in Japanese and thus loses the pun on 'diagonally'.
For more information, see the section on Word play: Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley.
(A summary of this chapter can be found at Harry Potter Facts. Detailed notes on the chapter can be found at Harry Potter Lexicon)
 Chapter 4 |
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