Well, autumn has come to the Lowlands, and the dreary weather calls for some form of entertainment. I thought I’d amuse you with a short story I was told in Amman. It concerns a Disney classic and a beautiful mistake.
Wendy: Where do you live?
Peter: Second to the right, and then straight on till morning.
A friend told me he had been watching the Arabic dubbed version of Disney’s Peter Pan. He remembered the story from his youth, but was confused by the fact that Holenda (Holland) was continuously mentioned as the place where Peter Pan and Wendy, John and Michael Darling had all their daring adventures. He watched the entire movie in Arabic dub: how Wendy and her brothers were able to slip into the magical world of Holland, how the Lost Boys and their leader Peter Pan bravely fought the pirate captain Hook of the Dutch ship the Jolly Roger, how the Indians of Holland were struggling against the Pirates.
My friend thought something was off, but couldn’t really fathom the nature, nor the scale of the erroneous element. When the credits rolled he noticed something. It said Neverland. That’s when he realised the obvious.
The translator’s ears had turned Neverland into Netherland, consequently leading him to the assumption that Peter Pan’s magical world was the Netherlands, or Holland. Ha! Those voiced dental fricatives!
The beauty of such errors often surpasses the human rule of ‘we all make mistakes‘. In this case, one man’s mistake ensures that a good portion of the Arab world grows up thinking the Netherlands is a magical place of flying kids in tights, fairies, pirates and indians. Simply precious!
