2023-10-22 09:14:39
Klaus Jöken has been the German translator of the adventures of Asterix for around twenty years. He goes behind the scenes of the translation of the series on the occasion of the release of L’Iris blanc this Thursday.
Editorial event of the week in France, the release of the new Asterix album, The White Iris, will be just as important in Germany, the second home of the indomitable Gaul thanks in particular to the talent of the translator of his adventures, Klaus Jöken.
Living in Auvergne for 35 years, this native of Cleves, Germany, has been translating the albums of Asterix and Obelix into the language of Goethe since The Sky Falls on His Head, the last drawn by Albert Uderzo.
For this perfect French speaker, however, each album remains difficult: “We cannot say that there are easy things to do. Even the little things that seem trivial are always difficult and require a lot of thought to do better.”
Be funny
His method is always the same. He begins by transcribing the French text “to take it in hand a little”. Then he translates it into the bubbles to see if the sentences are the right length. “Each text must fit perfectly in the bubbles.”
The cover of the German edition of the 40th Asterix album, “The White Iris” – Albert René
After a week, Klaus Jöken has a “good translation”. “When a gag doesn’t work in German, I have to invent another,” he explains. “It’s a lot of research to find the right gag.”
Then he moves on to translating the names of the characters. The only instruction: “The names must be funny,” he insists. “It has to be in the same range as in the French version.”
Cétautomatix thus becomes Automatix. “When it works, you have to stay close to the original,” recommends Klaus Jöken. “It doesn’t have to be far-fetched and we don’t have to change everything.” Panoramix – a play on words untranslatable into German – however became Miraculix.
“It’s funny for the Germans because there is the word ‘miracle’ and (it refers) to a brand of spaghetti which was called ‘miraculi’ at one time,” laughs Klaus Jöken.
Asterix was called Siggi
Does the absence of German words in “us” complicate the translation of Roman names? “It’s a little harder. But I have the impression that I can still find some,” says Klaus Jöken. “It’s especially the ‘ix’ words that are starting to wear out…”
The German version of the trailer for “L’Iris blanc”, the 40th album of “Asterix” – Albert René
The caricature of Johnny Hallyday, in Les Pictes, was not easy to transpose either. “In Germany, he’s not known at all! We had to find a rock singer with the same face. It took me two days to find it. For us, it’s Peter Maffay!”
This attention paid to the German edition of Asterix was not always appropriate. “The first German translations were disastrous,” recalls Klaus Jöken. The translation, carried out without the agreement of the authors, changed the meaning of the comic strip.
Asterix was then baptized Siggi. “It became a real anti-communist – one might even say far-right – propaganda comic. Since then, they have demanded that each (German) translation be retranslated into French in order to reread it.”
Nothing of the sort with Fabcaro, who is “very much in the spirit of Asterix”, reassures the translator. His humor “differs a little from Ferri’s jokes”: “His jokes are often in several cascades, with five puns in a row. Ferri is more into a gag that is well prepared and explodes like a rocket.”
Nicolas Behar with Jérôme Lachasse
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