Tintin Forums

Next year I'll be taking my Latin GCSE. It's a subject I take quite seriously and so I really hope to do well. I've heard of people reading novels in the language they are studying - so why not Tintin, too? Does anyone know where I could find a couple of Tintin volumes in Latin..?

La Maison de la Bande Dessinee in Brussels has 2 Latin books of Tintin and Snowy adventures (I have a copy of 'De insula Nigra'). I saw them there last week. Their web address is info[at]jije[dot]org. The shop is opposite the Gare Centrale, next to the Grand Place.

I thought Latin was a dead language and so they didn't translate the Tintin books into the language?
Interesting.

But people still learn Latin in schools, so there's a market for Latin books. You can buy Asterix in Latin still, so it's a pity the Tintin book is out of print. Latin is used so much in science, for scientific names, so that it isn't completely dead.

Thankyou very much. Sadly I won't be going to Brussels any time soon... oh well. Thanks anyway guys.


No, merely resting! =D

You might already know this, but the first Harry Potter book has been published in Latin (and Ancient Greek as well) in the UK. I haven't actually read it, so don't know how good it is (but then, I haven't read any Harry Potter in English either)

Olippold, I thank you for the suggestion! I did know that, yes, and I had considered buying it, but Tintin seemed like a better option for a number of reasons: firstly, it's not intimidating to look at, secondly, I wouldn't get totally lost half way through, and thirdly (though this isn't really an academic reason), I'm having more fun with Tintin than I ever did with Harry Potter. ;) Now, however, it seems I may have to go with the book anyway...

That's interesting. I have studied them both, Greek more than Latin. I wonder, how on earth it is possible to translate modern things and concepts into Greek, and if there is updaded lexicons somewhere. My Liddel & Scott Greek lexicon (and griechisch Wörterbuch) would be worth of nothing if I should read Potter in Ancient Greek. Latin is bit different, it is not so dead language as Greek is. I am an old-school-bloke, those Potter-translations are not for me, I prefer the real stuff. :-)

It may not be the same where you are from, but for English most if not all scientific, philosophic and technical terms from the Renaissance onwards have been made out of Latin and Greek terms - "telephone", "television", “atom”, “idiot”, “moron”, “camera”, “vaccinate”, most of Haddock’s extended vocabulary, and for that matter "science", "philosophy" and "technical"... Don’t know what they do in Greece...

It did lead to the slightly misguided notion that English grammar could be shoe-horned into the same structure as Latin, when it is in fact a Germanic rather than a Romance language, but that aside it is probably the fact that they are languages in stasis which makes them suitable for coining new words - the original definitions are known and not so open to ambiguity.

I’m sure I posted this somewhere before, but there was a famous exchange in a debate, where someone was proposing that Scottish Gaelic would die out because it couldn’t express modern concepts: “What is the Gaelic for ‘television’, for example?”
A poet turned and replied “What is the English for ‘television’?”

It is same in Finnish, but not on so big scale. Actually I meant that making up new words like "hocceium glaciale" (ice hockey) or "magnetoscopium" (VTR) is a normal practice in Latin - Latin is not a dead language as we all know.

I haven't come across the same when studying ancient Greek. Nobody speaks it any more, and all the substance is from antics. Of course there is Erasmian pronouncing, which is clumsy as hell, and obviously modern textes are translated into Greek, but not on the same scale as in Latin. That's why I doubted if there are updaded lexicons, I haven't seen a singe one and I can guarantee I have got plenty of material on my shelf. :-)

EDIT: I ordered "AREIOS POTER kai he tou philosophou lithos". I am very curious about the Greek version. There are also two Latin Harrius Potter translations. The books are quite cheap, under 20 $.