Holmes was tranlated in French!

[snorri]

I recently discovered that Holmes was translated in French, at unknown date between 1978 and 1982. It was a pirate translation, without any clear link with TSR, not any kind of publisher name - just a mention of the printing place [Sannoie, where most Jeux Descartes games, the boardgame and future RPGs editor products were also printed].

The translation is not bad, but there a lot of misunderstanding, typos and funny things (the displacer beast became a Remover Puma !), and a feature which I find interesting, Halflings have been translated as gnomes.

I heard about another pusblished, but unauthorized translation, which I will explain as soon as I got in hands. The fisrt official, TSR approved version, was Molway red Box in 1982.

To have a look on that relic :
dnd.ezael.net/~snorri/Holmes_VF.pdf

Excellent stuff, thanks Nico. I look forward to your next revelation.

[jjarvis]

Awesome. Stay away from the loaves of paralyzation however.

[flightcommander]

Sept 28, 2009 6:27:13 GMT -6 snorri said:

Halflings have been translated as gnomes.

Ha! I banished halflings from my game recently but replaced them with gnomes.

[kabuki]

This message had escaped my Holmes scan until now, for no good reason. I know it's 2-years old, but I really, really have to answer:

Snorri, this document was my first contact ever with D&D. I can't believe it's posted here! It was in the box when you bought D&D in 1979-1980 in France, folded in two in the rules book.

My father and I didn't expect a translation at all and we were very happy to find it inside.

I actually played with this.

Thanks for sharing!

[Zenopus]

Thanks for the info, kabuki. I have a page for foreign editions where I mention this version; I'll update it with your info.
sites.google.com/site/zenopusarchives/home/rulebook-printing-info-and-trivia/holmes-basic---foreign-editions

The "box" you refer to - do you mean an English-language Holmes set? As opposed to an OD&D set. If it's a Holmes set, do you remember if it was a US or UK version?

I wonder if a French distributor for TSR provided this translation with the sets? If so, it would have quasi-official status.

Just noticed that Lemunda the Lovely was translated as "Lemunda la Superbe"

[kabuki]

I'm 100% sure it was an english-language Holmes, blue book and all.

No, I don't remember if this was US or UK, sorry. If that helps, this was July 1980. We've learned later from the shop that we were lucky to have this because the previous batch didn't have any translation.

Further, and from what Snorri says (Sannoie), it sounds like the distributor snatched it in, but I really can't be sure.

Dice (plastic and light blue I think) and B1 were included.

[kesher]

That is pure awesome! I love how some of the monsters names weren't translated at all. We go from a serpent-coq (I assume a cockatrice) to a black pudding. I assume that French has cognates for both black and pudding...

[gangrene93]

I had this translation with the Moldvay Basic set in 1983, it took me years to understand why the translation was so different from the original...

[kabuki]

You've had that with a Moldvay box?! Wasn't Moldvay already fully translated in french?

(We have pudding, but not black - this translation was weird anyway .

[gangrene93]

I bought the english edition of Moldvay just a few months before the french one came out... So I kept playing with it.

[kesher]

I assume that French has cognates for both black and pudding...

UPDATE: Google Translate gives me: boudin noir for black pudding...and man, everything really DOES sound better in French!

Now I want to run the WHOLE THING through GT, just to give it an extra level of strangeness...

[jjarvis]

some of the monster name translations are interesting.

Chiens Intermittents >> Intermittent Dogs
Ours De Cauchmard >> Bears of Nightmares ?
Puma Demenageur >> Puma Mover
Cendre Gluante >> Ash Sticky

It's just fun to read.

[kesher]

So, blink dogs, displacer beast... what are the other two?

[Azafuse]

Aug 26, 2011 14:07:03 GMT -6 kesher said:

So, blink dogs, displacer beast... what are the other two?

Ours De Cauchmard -> Bugbear
Cendre Gluante -> Gray Ooze

The only difference between BB and ODC seems to be their HDs.


P.S.: it seems french monsters use the alphabetical order of english ones.

[Zenopus]

I summarized the info in this thread on the French translation of Holmes in a blog post:

zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2011/10/lemunda-la-superbe.html

And here's the translated Monster List:
Bandit
Basilic
Berserk
Black Pudding
Chien Intermittents (Blink Dog)
Ours De Cauchemard (Bugbear)
Charognard Rampant (Carrion Crawler)
Chimere
Serpent-Coq (Cockatrice)
Puma Demenageur (Displacer Beast)
Djinns (Djinni)
Doppleganger
Dragons - Blanc, Noir, Rouge, Cuivre (White, Black, Red, Brass)
Nains (Dwarves)
Elfes
Scarabees En Feu (Fire Beetle)
Gargouille
Cubes Gelatineux
Goules
Geants (Giants) - des monts (Hill), de pierre (Stone), de glace (Frost), de feu (Fire), des nuages (Cloud), des tempetes (Storm)
Fourmi Geante (Giant Ant)
Mille Pattes Geant (Giant Centipede)
Rats Geants
Tique Geante (Giant Tick)
Gnoll
Gnome
Gobelin
Cendre Gluante (Gray Ooze)
Boue Verte (Green Slime)
Griffon
Harpies
Chien D'Enfer (Hell Hound)
Hippogriffe
Hobgobelins
Cheval (Horse)
Hydre
Kobold
Homme (Lizard Man)
Lycanthropes - Sanglier-garou (Werebear), Rat-garou (Wererat), Ours-garou (Werebear), Tigre-garou (Weretiger), Loup-garou (Werewolf)
Manticore
Meduse
Minotaure
Momie (Mummy)
Ocre Suintant / Gelee Ocre (Ochre Jelly)
Ogre
Orque
Ours Huant (Owl Bear)
Pegase
Pixie
Ver Pourpre (Purple Worm)
Rouille Monstrueuse (Rust Monster)
Ombre (Shadow)
Crieur (Shrieker)
Squelette (Skeleton)
Spectre
Araignees (Spider) - Grosse, Enorme, Geante
Stirge
Troglodytes
Troll
Licorne (Unicorn)
Vampire
Espirit (Wight)
Revenant (Wraith)
Moisissure Jaune (Yellow Mold)
Zombie

[Lord Nikon]

Lots of great work..

[Zenopus]

Thanks, Lord Nikon!

I've made a page on my website to summarize all of the information about this translation:
French translation of the Blue Book
(Please correct me if there are any errors)

[snorri]

Ours De Cauchemard (Bugbear), is a wonderful translation, as it mean literraly "nightmare bear". Later french translation used a neologism, Goblours, which contract Goblin and ours (bear), but sounds likes Gobe l'ours (eat the bear).

[cadriel]

Zenopus, I think the list is missing all the accent marks, any chance you could add them in where appropriate?

For English speakers some of the names are inordinately funny because éclair and baguette are widely-used food names in English. So with Anneau d'éclair instead of "ring of lightning" (which is odd in itself) one pictures a magic-user conjuring a pastry; with "baguette de peur" the image is of a wizard wielding a loaf of bread - the bread of fear!

[DungeonDevil]

Then again there is a pastry called a bear claw. Perhaps we should stat out the owlbear claw.

[Zenopus]

Another version of the French translation of Holmes has been recently discovered by Lurker Below, a member of the Acaeum. The translation is the same but the formatting is different. It was also accompanied by a French translation of the monochrome B1, which I hadn't seen before. Please see this post over on the Acaeum for pictures.

[kesher]

Tres Awesomme!

I'd say you're dead-on about the sequence of the versions; I'd also love to see the whole B1 translation...