Harry Potter Has Been Translated into Scottish

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books form one of the most beloved fantasy series of all time and to date the books have now been translated into 80 different languages, with Scots being the latest edition. This Scottish edition of Harry Potter is released today and is a great way to see how the Scots language is so similar and yet so different from English.

The Scots language is spoken by over 1.5 million people in Scotland, but the dialect has been slowly but surely dying out since English is officially the language of Scotland. As NPR reports, Mathew Fitt has spent 15 years translating young adult books into Scots in an effort to help keep the language alive and to allow young Scottish people to enjoy books in their own dialect.

Fitt thinks Harry Potter is perfect for translating into Scots since much of the book was written in Scotland, the movies were partially filmed in the Scottish Highlands, and Hagrid, one of the most popular characters, speaks in the Scots dialect.

Though the Scots dialect shares many similarities with English, there are some notable differences. For instance, Dumbledore turns into Dumbiedykes, Quidditch turns to Bizzumbaw, and You Know Who becomes Ye Ken Wha (ph).
Fitt’s work on this translation is more than just a love for Harry Potter. “I was criticized, vilified, beaten for speaking Scots. I’m not ancient. I’m not that young, but I’m not ancient. And lots of people of my generation have a similar experience,” he said. It’s often a misconception that Scots is either slang or a bastardized version of English, but it is indeed its own language.

You can listen to NPR’s interview below to hear Fitt’s reading Harry Potter in the Scots language.

The next language Harry Potter is set to be translated to is Mongolian. Other notable dialects it has been translated into includes Afrikaans, Ancient Greek, Welsh, and even Latin.