Chapter 11: The Duelling Club
| Simplified Chinese (Mandarin: China) | ||
| 决斗俱乐部 Juédòu jùlèbù |
决斗 juédòu = 'decisive struggle' = 'duel'. 俱乐部 jùlèbù = 'club' |
The Duelling Club |
| Traditional Chinese (Mandarin: Taiwan) | ||
| 決鬥社 Juédòu-shè |
決鬥
juédòu = 'decisive struggle' = 'duel'. 社 shè = 'society, club'. |
The Duelling Society |
| Japanese | ||
| 決闘クラブ Kettō kurabu |
決闘
kettō = 'decisive struggle' = 'duel'. クラブ kurabu = 'club'. |
The Duelling Club |
| Korean | ||
| 결투 클럽 Gyeoltu keulleob |
결투 (決鬪) gyeoltu = 'decisive struggle' = 'duel'. 클럽 keulleob = 'club'. |
The Duelling Club |
| Vietnamese (Chinese characters show etymology) | ||
| Câu lạc bộ đấu tay đôi | câu lạc bộ (俱樂部) = 'club'. đấu (鬥) = 'fight, battle against'. tay đôi = 'two (together)' |
The Duelling Club |
| Mongolian (previous) | ||
| Халз тулааны клуб Khalz tulaanii klüb |
халз тулаан khalz tulaan = 'frontal fight' = 'duel' (-ы -ii Genitive form). клуб klüb = 'club'. |
The Duelling Club |
| Mongolian (new) | ||
| Халз тулааны клуб Khalz tulaanii klüb |
халз тулаан khalz tulaan = 'frontal fight' = 'duel' (-ы -ii Genitive form). клуб klüb = 'club'. |
The Duelling Club |
The duelling club at Hogwarts was first set up by Gilderoy Lockhart to teach students how to defend themselves against the Dark Arts.
How is 'duel' translated?
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon rules (Wikipedia). A duel usually requires the presence of witnesses. According to Etymology Online, the word 'duel' is originally from Latin duellum, an old form of bellum 'war'. It was later reinterpreted as being from Latin duo 'two' and applied to combat between two persons. Such combat was common in the Western world in the early modern period.
- Chinese, Japanese, and Korean use the same word for 'duel', having the meaning of 'decisive fight'. However, the common origin of the term in the three languages is obscured by the use of three character variants, 鬥, 斗, and 闘, pronounced dòu,
tō and tu respectively, meaning 'struggle, fight'.
- Vietnamese đấu 'fight against' is also from 鬥. Used with tay đôi,
an expression that means 'two (together)', the meaning becomes 'duel' or 'single combat. Tay đôi is used where a situation involves two sides, such as 'bilateral policies'.
- The two Mongolian translations use the standard word for 'duel', халз тулаан khalz tulaan, consisting of халз khalz 'frontal' and тулаан tulaan 'fight, struggle'.
How is 'club' translated?
Despite being established under the auspices of a member of school staff, it would appear to fall under the general category of what we would call school clubs and societies. Only a couple of other extracurricular clubs are mentioned in the Harry Potter books, namely a Gobstones club and a Charms club. Others appear in movies and games (see Harry Potter Wiki's Clubs page.) The Slug Club is more of an exclusive member's club.
In English, the use of 'club' for associations of people dedicated to a particular interest or activity dates back to the 17th century (see Etymology Online). It appears to have evolved from the concept of people gathered in a 'club-like mass'.
The concept and the word spread to other European countries and languages as early as the 18th century, from France right across to Russia.
Clubs were brought to East Asia in the 19th century by European colonialists. In Japan, the earliest foreign club was established in 1863, followed very quickly by the first Japanese club in 1872. In accordance with the fashion of the time, Chinese characters were used to represent the foreign word 'club', first 苦楽部 (bitterness + pleasure + section), later 俱楽部 (together + pleasure + section). Theoretically 俱楽部 should be read gu-raku-bu but due to the way that characters were historically adopted into Japanese, the language has always been fairly tolerant of a looser relationship between characters and their readings. The pronunciation of the word appears to have always been kurabu. Nowadays it is usually written in katakana as クラブ.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries there was considerable linguistic interchange within East Asia, and 俱楽部 was borrowed from Japanese into other languages of the Sinosphere. It was at one time used in Korea, read as 구락부 gu-lag-bu, but this has largely fallen out of use, except for retro establishments or those directed at Japanese customers. Korean now uses 클럽 keulleob, which is modelled directly on English.
In Chinese, on the other hand, 俱樂部 (Trad.) / 俱乐部 (Simpl.) jùlèbù has become the standard form and is still in wide use, even though the pronunciation is virtually unidentifiable to an English speaker.
From Chinese the term made its way into Vietnamese, where it was read as câu lạc bộ based on the Vietnamese reading of the characters 俱樂部. Vietnamese no longer uses Chinese characters but this old reading still lives on.
The word 'club' originally came into Mongolian via Russian, not Japanese or Chinese, and is still spelt the Russian way as клуб klub, even though it is pronounced as though it were spelt клүб klüb. The traditional Mongolian script uses the letter ᠦ, which signals ü rather than u. (Note that ü in our transcription does not represent the German umlauted u. In standard Mongolian it can be understood as something like English 'u', although German 'u', French 'ou', or Spanish 'u' might be a closer fit. The Mongolian sound written as u here is pronounced more like 'aw' in British English.)
As in English, words for 'club' cover a broad range of organisations, from exclusive member's clubs to sports clubs to night clubs, not all of which are even clubs in the traditional sense.
The borrowed word for 'club' is used for school clubs and societies in some of our languages.
- クラブ kurabu, along with サークル sākuru 'circle', is the normal word for high school and university clubs in Japanese. The old writing 俱楽部 still survives in the expression 部活 bukatsu, short for クラブ活動 kurabu katsudō 'club activities', using the character 部 from 俱楽部. クラブ kurabu is used in the Japanese translation.
- School clubs are known in Vietnamese as câu lạc bộ, often abbreviated to 'CLB'. Câu lạc bộ is used in the Vietnamese translation.
Languages in which words related to English 'club' are not used or not commonly used for high school clubs are Chinese, Korean, and Mongolian:
- In Chinese, school clubs and societies can be broadly categorised as 社團 (Trad.) / 社团 (Simpl.) shètuán 'societies and organisations'. Both in China and Taiwan the names of such clubs usually end in the character 社 -shè but only the Taiwanese translation reflects this ordinary usage in 決鬥社 juédòu-shè. 俱乐部 jùlèbù is more likely to refer to an extramural bodies (i.e. not belonging to a particular school). The Mainland translator uses 俱乐部 jùlèbù. (Thanks to Zeyoung Liou for pointing
out Taiwan usage and Hiro for pointing out Mainland Chinese usage).
- In Korean, the usual term for high-school and university clubs is the native Korean word 동아리 dong-ali, which can be translated into English as 'circle' or 'club'. However, the Korean translation of the chapter title uses 클럽 keulleeob, which nowadays tends to be associated more with sports clubs or night clubs.
- In Mongolian schools, extracurricular activities are divided between дугуйлан duguilan 'circles', referring to cultural or other activities, сонгон songon, roughly 'electives', devoted to extra study of school subjects, and секц sekts, literally 'sections' (from Russian), devoted to sports. The Mongolian translations use клуб klub, which is normally used for extramural groups (e.g., an outside chess club that is not confined to one school).
(Korean appears thanks to "Hiro".)
(Detailed notes on the chapter can be found at Harry Potter Lexicon)
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