The List

Trying to produce an authoritative list of Harry Potter translations is extremely difficult, in no small part due to the fact that one’s purpose in assembling such a list biases the criteria for inclusion or exclusion are not always clear! The list here is geared towards collectors with a variety of interests and so includes books that other lists may not. The excellent Wikipedia page, Harry Potter in Translation (which I regularly contribute to), for example, is focused on the question of “how many languages have the Harry Potter books been officially translated into?” It doesn’t include unauthorized translations and it doesn’t provide much information about cases where the books have been regionally adapted. It does record multiple translations into the same language, but almost as an aside.

This list is organized around language-related ‘editions’ of all types: translations, regional adaptations, transliterations and other significant variations in texts that have been observed (but not, say, the illustrated edition). This is reflective of my own collecting interests; as a linguist, I’m interested primarily in the texts of books as documents. I don’t care about first editions or whether or not a translation is “official”. Other people have totally different interests which is why: a) I have tried to be as clear as possible about what the books on this list are; and b) why I intend to increase the scope of this list over time to reflect broader interests as well. Ultimately, I would love it if this became the authoritative place to look for information on any edition in any language of any Harry Potter book.

For the time being, the list is exclusively “Philosopher’s Stone”. The list which used to only include “Philosopher’s Stone”, now covers all seven books. Most of the content should be self-explanatory with the aid of the legend and with Potterglot’s definition of Terminology. Note that you can filter the content to suit your interests and not that you can hover over non-latin titles in order to view the transliteration. In the final column, if the word “status” or “note” appears, you can hover your pointer over the word to get more information. “Note” is general; “Status” refers more to comments on how confident my assessment of category or status of the book is. Sometimes, information can be hard to come by, particularly when you’re trying to get information about an edition in a language that you don’t understand.

A list such as this will always be a work in progress; feedback, additions and corrections are always appreciated. I hope you find it useful!

The List in Google Sheets