Chapter 6: Gilderoy Lockhart

Simplified Chinese (Mandarin: China)
吉德罗･洛哈特 Jídéluó Luòhātè	吉德罗 Jídéluó = 'Gilderoy'. 洛哈特 Luòhātè = 'Lockhart'.	Gilderoy Lockhart
Traditional Chinese (Mandarin: Taiwan)
吉德羅･洛哈 Jídéluó Luóhā	吉德羅 Jídéluó = 'Gilderoy'. 洛哈 Luóhā = 'Lockhart'.	Gilderoy Lockhart
Japanese
ギルデロイ・ロックハート Giruderoi Rokkuhāto	ギルデロイ Giruderoi = 'Gilderoy'. ロックハート Rokkuhāto = 'Lockhart'.	Gilderoy Lockhart
Korean
질데로이 록허트 Jildeloi Logheoteu	질데로이 Jildeloi = 'Gilderoy' (커다란 + ㄴ keodala+n) 록허트 Logheoteu = 'willow-tree'.	Gilderoy Lockhart
Vietnamese (Chinese characters show etymology)
Gilderoy Lockhart	Gilderoy Lockhart (pronunciation footnote: Gin-đơ-roi Lốc-hác).	Gilderoy Lockhart
Mongolian (previous)
Гилдерой Логхарт Gilderoi Logkhart	Гилдерой gilderoi = 'Gilderoy'. Логхарт logkhart = 'Lockhart'.	Gilderoy Lockhart
Mongolian (new)
Гилдерой Локхарт Gilderoi Lokkhart	Гилдерой gilderoi = 'Gilderoy' Локхарт lokkhart = 'Lockheart'.	Gilderoy Lockhart

Gilderoy Lockhart is the vain, self-promoting teacher of Defence Against the Dark Arts in Harry's second year.

How is 'Gilderoy Lockhart' transliterated?

All chapter titles are transliterations of Gilderoy Lockhart's name. As such they are largely unremarkable. However, a few points stand out:

• The Japanese name is transliterated into katakana according to certain well-established principles dating back over a century.
  
  1. Pronunciation is based on British English. The vowel in 'lock' is a short British 'o', not the longer, more open American sound, which sounds like 'ah'. The vowel in 'hart' is also British, without the 'r' pronounced, unlike the General American version with a strongly pronounced 'r'. That is, 'haht', not 'hart'.
  
  After a short vowel, the syllable-final 'k' is rendered as ック kku (i.e., ロック rokku). After a long vowel the consonant in ハート hāto is a single 't' (but see 3.).
  
  2. The Japanese 'r' sound is somewhere between an 'r' and an 'l' in English and must do service for both sounds.
  
  3. Japanese is often said to be a 'syllabic' language. In fact, it is arranged into timed units called 'morae'. Each mora is theoretically the same length. In Gilderoy Lockhart, there are 11 morae: gi-ru-de-ro-i ro-k-ku-ha-a-to! Unless they are doubled, as in kku, morae should end in vowels. That's why there is a 'u' in ' Rokku and an 'o' in Haato. (Pronouncing each katakana letter the same length will improve your Japanese pronunciation immensely.)
  
  
• Korean has a richer sound system and a more elaborate syllabic system than Japanese. For instance, the 'l' in 'Gil' is pronounced as an 'l', not as a 'ru'. The vowel sounds in 'heoteu' are more nuanced than Japanese 'haato', although the 't' must still be followed by a vowel. 'Gi' must be replaced by 'Ji'.
  
  
• Chinese transliterations of foreign names use Chinese characters for their phonetic value. Wherever possible characters are chosen with auspicious meanings: e.g., 吉 jí means 'auspicious, lucky'; 德 dé means 'virtuous'.
  
  However, there are two traditions in the transliteration of foreign names into Chinese. The older tradition is one of 'impressionistic' renderings. This leaves out sounds to create shorter words but still manage to sound something like the original English. This method is still used on Taiwan.
  
  In Mainland China, transliteration practices have been regularised and modernised, giving very similar results to Japanese and Korean. The difference is that Chinese must rely on Chinese characters to spell out the sound whereas Korean has the hangul alphabet and Japanese has the katakana syllabary. Chinese uses a conventional list of characters (as in Lockhart's name) to write foreign names.
  
  Like Korean and Japanese, Chinese has problems rendering the sounds of English. Mandarin has a limited range of syllables, most of which are open (although there are more sounds and closed syllables in dialects such as Cantonese).
  
  In transliterating 'Gilderoy Lockhart', the Taiwanese version uses 吉德羅･洛哈 Jídéluó Luóhā. The 'l' in 'Gil', the 'y' in 'roy', and the 'ck' and 't' in 'hart' are all omitted. Nevertheless, the overall impression is reasonably similar to the English.
  The Mainland version is virtually identical: 吉德罗･洛哈特 Jídéluó Luòhātè.
  
  This is, in fact, far from normal. If the Mainland translator had adhered to the rules current in China for rendering English names, a somewhat different transliteration would have emerged, most likely 吉尔德罗伊･洛克哈尔特 Jí'ěrdéluóyī Luòkèhā'ěrtè. (There was, in fact, a Scottish outlaw called 'Gilderoy' whose name in Chinese is 吉尔德罗伊 jí'ěrdéluóyī. There is also a town in Texas called Lockhart that is usually transcribed as 洛克哈尔特 Luòkèhā'ěrtè and an actress called Emma Lockhart, transcribed as 艾玛·洛克哈特 Àimǎ Luòkèhātè (minus the 'r' in 'hart').)
  The Mainland Chinese translation seems to have cribbed the name from the Taiwanese edition. The only concession to ordinary Mainland usage is the addition of a final 特 tè.
  
  
• Vietnamese uses the original spelling of the English name. When it first came out in instalments, the translation had a footnote telling readers that 'Gilderoy Lockhart' should be read Gin-đơ-roi Lốc-hác. This reflects the fact that Vietnamese does not have syllable-final 'l' or 't'. These footnotes disappeared in the later full book editions.
  
  
• The two Mongolian translations transliterate Gilderoy Lockhart's name into Cyrillic on the Russian model. As part of this tradition, 'e' in foreign names is usually rendered with the Russian letter е ye rather than the usual Mongolian letter э e (as in Gilderoy Гилдерой). For some unknown reason, the previous translation used Логхарт log-khart rather than Локхарт lok-khart, which has been rectified in the new translation.
  
  The final к in 'Lockhart' clearly signals that this is a foreign word in Mongolian (Mongolian words traditionally do not have a 'k'). Still, Mongolian has a richer system of sounds and syllable structures than East Asian languages, meaning fewer problems dealing with foreign words. Most notably, Mongolian has an 'r' -- a trilled 'r' -- in 'hart'. This sound is not found in East Asian languages.
  
  Incidentally, the Russian translation calls Lockhart Златопуст Локонс Zlatopust Lokons, where Златопуст means 'gold leaf' (i.e., gilded). Bulgarian uses Гилдрой Локхарт gildroi lokkhart, which is slightly different from the Mongolian transliteration.

For more on the transliteration of foreign names, see How do CJV normally handle foreign names?.

(Korean appears thanks to "Hiro".)

(Detailed notes on the chapter can be found at Harry Potter Lexicon)

⇚ Chapter 5

Chapter 7 ⇛