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Resource type: Web Article Language: en: English Peer reviewed BibTeX citation key: Bentahar2012 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details |
Categories: General Keywords: "Tintin", Arabia, Belgium, Hergé, Language, Reception, Remi. Georges Creators: Bentahar Collection: Alternative Francophone |
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Attachments | URLs https://journals.l ... article/view/12250 |
Abstract |
Hergé’s adventures of Tintin have been translated to over 80 languages and dialects, including Arabic. Yet, only one of the stories that see Tintin travel to the Arab World were translated or made available in Arabic. What is exceptional about this story, and why were the others not deemed fit for an Arabic version? The editorial choices made by the Arabic publishers of Tintin’s albums—even when this choice is to not translate them—are revealing not only of issues pertaining to the representation of the language in Hergé’s works, but also of peculiar cultural challenges in exposing one of Belgium’s most recognizable characters to Islamic and Arabic-speaking audiences. This essay examines the ways in which Arabic and those who speak it are represented in the adventures set in the Arab World, in order to explain the challenges standing in the way of an Arabic edition of those albums. Moreover, its study of the Arabic that Hergé included in the original Tintin books written in French contributes to scholarship about Hergé and his art in general, and more specifically his realist tendencies, through an assessment of the accuracy of the Arabic he employed, and an analysis of the ways in which Tintin books can be experienced by bilingual readers (who know Arabic but read the books in French or English for example).
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