Currently thinking about non-English translations of Jabberwocky, because it has to be so hard translating a nonsense poem.
And it’s not just making the nonsense words fit the translated language’s morphology, you have to have most of the nonsense words mean something for a later chapter in the book where Humpty Dumpty explains the portmanteau words. So in one Japanese translation, “frumious,” which is a portmanteau of “fuming” and “furious,” is translated as “takeburu,” which draws on the words “takeru,” fierce, and “keburu”, to smoke.
But I also just love the names of the Jabberwock in other languages. In French he’s le Jaseroque, der Jammerwoch in German, Barmaglot in Russian, and at least one Danish translation named him Kloppervok. It’s the one word you could very justifiably keep untranslated, but everyone wants to make the name fit, make it feel at home in the translation.
I have no point here, I just think it’s neat.
Here's an excellent in-depth article about the perils of translating Jabberwocky, in particular to Chinese.
