Chapter 3: The Knight Bus

Simplified Chinese (Mandarin: China)
骑士公共汽车 Qíshì gōnggòng-qìchē	骑士 qíshì = 'knight'. 公共汽车 gōnggòng-qìchē = 'public car' = 'bus'.	The knight bus
Traditional Chinese (Mandarin: Taiwan)
騎士公車 Qíshì gōngchē	騎士 qíshì = 'knight'. 公車 gōngchē = 'public car' = 'bus'	The Knight Bus
Japanese
夜の騎士（ナイト）バス Yoru no kishi basu / Naito basu	夜 yoru = 'night'. の no = connecting particle 騎士 kishi = 'knight'. バス basu = 'bus'. ナイト naito = 'nite' (could be 'night' or 'knight').	The Knight of the Night Bus / The Nite Bus
Korean
구조 버스 Gujo beoseu	구조 (救助) gujo = 'rescue, help'. 버스 beoseu = bus.	The Rescue Bus
Vietnamese (Chinese characters show etymology)
Chuyến xe đò Hiệp sĩ	chuyến = 'journey'. xe đò = 'bus'. hiệp sĩ (俠士) = 'knight'.	The Journey by Knight Bus
Mongolian (new)
Хүлэг баатрын автобус khüleg baatriin avtobus	хүлэг баатар khüleg baatar 'mount hero' (хүлэг khüleg = 'mount, horse') (-ийн -iin Genitive form). автобус avtobus = 'autobus'.	The Knight Bus

When Harry finds himself stranded a few streets away from Privet Drive, he unconsciously summons the Knight Bus, 'emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard'.

Let us start with the words 'knight' and 'bus'.

How is 'knight' translated?

'Knight' is a historical term associated with the European Middle Ages. The knight was a mounted warrior, a member of the lower nobility, who served his lord as a vassal. Knights became associated with the code of chivalry, involving respect for the church, protection of the poor and the weak, loyalty to feudal or military superiors, and preservation of personal honour.

• Chinese and Japanese use the same word (etymologically) for a Western mediaeval knight. The Japanese word is 騎士 kishi. The Chinese is 騎士 (Trad.) or 骑士 (Simpl.) qíshì. The characters mean (roughly) 'a gentleman (士) who rides (騎 (Simpl.) 骑)'. The Korean equivalent is 기사 gisa; however, the Korean translator does not actually use this.
  
  
• Vietnamese also has this word (kỵ sĩ), but the more common Vietnamese term for 'knight' is hiệp sĩ, taken from Chinese tradition. The hiệp sĩ (usually called a 俠客 (Trad.) / 侠客 (Simpl.) xiákè in Chinese) was a person in olden times who was adept in the martial arts and given to chivalrous conduct, a very close equivalent to the knights of the Middle Ages (see the Wikipedia article on Wuxia). As an aside, Spiderman in Chinese is usually rendered 蜘蛛侠 (Simpl.) zhīzhu-xiá — the 'spider knight'.
  
  
• The word 'knight' is rendered in the Mongolian translation as хүлэг баатар khüleg baatar, meaning 'a hero on a mount'. Хүлэг khüleg or хөлөг khölög is a term used for a horse as a means of transport. Баатар baatar is the general term for a 'hero'. Another word used in Mongolia to translate 'knight' in the European sense is рыцарь ritsar', from Russian, which is possibly derived from German Ritter 'knight'. However, since Mongolian warriors always ride horses, the concept of a knight can equally be expressed by words like морьтой хүн mor'toi khün or морьтон mor'ton 'person on a horse', тайж taij 'nobleman', or цэрэг тайж tsereg taij 'soldier nobleman'. Apart from being one of the terms used for 'knight', хүлэг баатар khüleg baatar 'mounted hero' was possibly chosen for its appropriateness to the context, a 'hero' that came to Harry's rescue.

How is 'bus' translated?

A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry many passengers. The term is derived from 'omnibus', historically a pun from the 1820s in France. A businessman near Nantes called Stanislas Baudry set up a transport service from the city centre to his spa in 1823. A hat shop en route owned by a Mr Omnés displayed a large sign inscribed "Omnes Omnibus" (Omnés + omnibus, Latin for 'for all'). The nickname 'omnibus' stuck to the bus service. Baudrey set up a bus service in Paris in 1828 and a similar service was introduced to London the following year. By 1833 the British had already shortened the name to 'bus'. Originally buses were either horse-drawn or (later) powered by steam. Buses powered by the internal combustion engine appeared at the end of the 19th century and came to be known as 'autobuses'. The term 'bus', along with its derivatives, was adopted all over Europe and soon spread to the rest of the world. (See Wikipedia.)

• The Japanese word for 'bus' is a direct borrowing from English: バス basu.
  
  
• Korean uses the word 버스 beoseu, also from English.
  
  
• The standard Vietnamese word for 'bus', at least in Hanoi, is xe buýt, where xe means 'car' or 'vehicle' and buýt is from French 'bus'. However, the Vietnamese translator, in line with her general practice throughout the books, uses the Saigon term for a bus, which is xe đò.
  
  
• The Mongolian term for 'bus' is автобус avtobus, which entered from Russian. The spelling follows Russian but the pronunciation is avtobüs, as though spelt автобүс. This is often reduced to avtos. (The term used for bus in Inner Mongolia, not used at all in Mongolia, is нийтийн машин (тэрэг) niitiin mashin (tereg) meaning 'public vehicle'.)
  
  
• The Mainland translator uses the official word for 'bus' (at least in Mainland China), 公共汽車 (Trad.) / 公共汽车 (Simpl.) gōnggòng-qìchē ('public vehicle').
  
  The Taiwanese translator uses a common Taiwanese word for bus, 公車 (Trad.) / 公车 (Simpl.) gōngchē ('public vehicle'), which can also be found in southern China. (In China, however, the more normal meaning is 'official car'.)
  
  There are actually two other Chinese words for bus. The first is 巴士 bāshì, from English 'bus', which is commonly used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Why the pronunciation bāshì? Because in Hong Kong, where it probably originated, 巴士 is pronounced like 'bus' in English. In Mandarin, however, the correct pronunciation for these two characters is bāshì, which is how it's pronounced in Beijing. 巴士 bāshì is common in Mainland China, where it is abbreviated as 巴 in 大巴 dà-bā 'large bus' and 中巴 zhōng-bā 'medium-sized bus'.
  
  On the Mainland, another word is gradually displacing 公共汽车 gōnggòng-qìchē for public bus services: 工交车 (Trad. 公交車) gōngjiāo-chē meaning 'public transport vehicle'.

How is the pun 'Knight Bus' translated?

The name of the Knight Bus contains an interesting pun. When spoken, it sounds like 'night bus' —— a bus that runs at night. But the spelling is 'knight bus' —— suggesting a knight in shining armour coming to the rescue of stranded wizards. How is this virtually untranslatable pun handled by the translators?

One approach is to ignore the pun and just translate the name as 'knight bus'. This is what the Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, and Mongolian translators have done.

Another is to completely ignore the word 'knight' which is the approach adopted by the Korean translator, who uses the term 구조 버스 gujo beoseu 'rescue bus'.

The Japanese translator comes up with a slightly forced but ingenious solution. Japanese writing has a peculiar device known as furigana or rubi. This involves placing small phonetic lettering (katakana or hiragana) above the text to indicate how it should be pronounced. This is useful for showing the pronunciation of difficult characters. It's also commonly found in children's books to help young readers. In fact, furigana is used throughout the Japanese translation of Harry Potter.

But furigana has another, more interesting use. Rather than giving the normally expected pronunciation, furigana can be used to give ordinary words a completely unexpected pronunciation. Sometimes this might involve giving a special twist to ordinary words. Often it involves giving the English equivalent of a Japanese word.

This particular use of furigana is quite common in 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban'. It's used in no less than six chapter titles to give the English pronunciation of words like 'firebolt' and 'dementor'. (See Chapter 5, Chapter 7, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 15, Chapter 20)

In this case, the translator uses furigana (or rubi) to explain the knight/night pun. The furigana is ナイト naito ('nite'), which could be either 'night' or 'knight'. The furigana ナイト naito spans the entire phrase 夜の騎士 yoru no kishi, 'knight of the night', making it clear that both are meant. This pun works in Japanese because virtually all Japanese know that ナイト naito means 'night', and quite a few also know that it means 'knight' (both are listed in Japanese dictionaries as loanwords from English).

The translator should be congratulated for coming up with such an ingenious way to render this difficult pun! (For a slightly more detailed explanation, please see Word Play: 'The Knight Bus').

(Korean appears thanks to "Hiro".)

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

⇚ Chapter 2

Chapter 4 ⇛