# 20 000 lieues sous les mers



## Outsider

How was the title of this book by Jules Verne translated into your language? I'm curious about the literal meaning of the translation. The English translation is almost completely literal, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea".

In Portuguese, it became _20 000 Léguas Submarinas_, which means "20 000 underwater leagues".

Thanks in advance.


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## Joannes

It's a literal translation in Dutch, *"Twintigduizend mijlen onder zee"*. A bit too literal a translation in fact, as units of weight and measure (and currency, too) usually don't go in the plural in Standard Dutch.


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## Outsider

I made a slight mistake above: a completely literal translation would have "seas" in the plural, instead of "sea". I assume _zee_ is singular, too...


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## kusurija

Czech:
Dvacettisíc mil pod mořem.


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## Outsider

Please add the literal translation of the translation.


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## betulina

In Catalan it is _Vint mil llegües de viatge submarí_ = 20,000 leagues of underwater journey.


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## Thomas1

In *Polish* it's:
_Dwadzieścia tysięcy mil podmorskiej żeglugi._ which translates into English as:
_Twenty thousand miles of under-the-sea navigation/sailing._ 
(the second one doesn't quite fit in here but I'm giving it to make it easier to undrstand the word _żegluga_, which can be translated in more than one way.)



kusurija said:


> Czech:
> Dvacettisíc mil pod mořem.


I think it's enough similar to Polish so I'll give it a try:
Twenty thousand miles under (the) sea.


Tom


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## irene.acler

In *Italian*:
20.000 leghe sotto i mari--> literal translation into English: _20.000 leagues under the seas_.


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## Thomas1

I've just remembered something more.
In Polish (and generally in Slavic languages, I assume) it's
twenty thousand*s*

I guess it's not the case with Romance (and Germanic?) langauges, is it?


Tom


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## deine

Lithuanian:

 "20 000 mylių po vandeniu" (20 000 miles under the water)


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## Outsider

Thomas1 said:


> I've just remembered something more.
> In Polish (and generally in Slavic languages, I assume) it's
> twenty thousand*s*
> 
> I guess it's not the case with Romance (and Germanic?) langauges, is it?
> 
> 
> Tom


Interesting question. I've started a new thread about that.


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## DrWatson

Finnish:

*Sukelluslaivalla maapallon ympäri* (literal translation: "Around the world on a submarine")


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## ukuca

*Turkish:* "Denizler altında yirmi bin (20.000) fersah"


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## Anatoli

*Russian:
*
"20 000 (двадцать тысяч) лье под водой"
"dv*a*dtsat' t*y*syach ly*e* pod vod*o*y"

"лье" seems like a transliteration, not sure why it was translated this way - too busy to check


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## alex.raf

*Persian:
20,000 Farsang Zireh Darya
بیست هزار فرسنگ زیر دریا 

*And that exactly means the same as English


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## Joannes

Outsider said:


> I assume _zee_ is singular, too...


Yep.


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## kusurija

Thomas1 said:


> In *Polish* it's:
> ...
> I think it's enough similar to Polish so I'll give it a try:
> Twenty thousand miles under (the) sea.
> 
> 
> Tom


Yes, ...sea is sg. I thought that it is clear and understandable. So, I'm sorry I didn't explain it. 
"Tisíc" in "dvacet tisíc" is in plural(2. pád=genitiv), and it is constricted from "tisíců". But in nominativ sg. it is the same: "tisíc".


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## kusurija

deine said:


> Lithuanian:
> 
> "20 000 myl*i*ų po vanden*i*u" (20 000 miles under the water)


20 000 = dvidešimt tūkstanč*i*ų
tūkstančių (daugiskaitos kilmininkas = pl.genitiv) sg.nomin.: tūkstantis
pl.nomin.:tūkstančiai
mylių = pl.genitiv sg.nomin.: mylia
vandeniu = sg.instr. (vienaskaitos įnagininkas) sg.nomin.: vanduo
y means long i (not hardened as in Czech or others) 
*i *(only where marked blue and bold) does not fuction as vowel "i" but it is mark of softening.


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## cajzl

One more comment:

The Czech translation is probably incorrect as there is a considerable difference between *líga* and *míle*:

1 líga (league) = 3 míle (miles)

The correct translation would have to be either

*Dvacet tisíců lig pod mořem.*
Literally: 20,000 (of) leagues under the sea.

or

*Šedesát tisíců mil pod mořem.*
Literally: 60,000 (of) miles under the sea.

 In fact, the voyage was three times longer than the common Czech translation suggests.


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## kanoe

vingt mille lieues sous les mers


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## cajzl

It is 96,560 km under the sea.  

Hmm, the equator is cca 40,000 km long.


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## Flaminius

Japanese has different translations:
海底二万里 Kaitē Niman-Ri
海底二万マイル Kaitē Niman-Mairu (mile)
海底二万リーグ Kaitē Niman-Rīgu (league)

Literally they mean 20 000 ri's/miles/leagues under the sea.  No plural for tenThousands nor for ri's/miles/leagues miles, because the language does not have plural forms in the first place.


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## Outsider

cajzl said:


> It is 96,560 km under the sea.
> 
> Hmm, the equator is cca 40,000 km long.


The voyage was not made in a straight line.


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## cajzl

BTW, the French name is "lieue" (from cca 3.2 to 5.5 km).
The metric lieue = 4 km, the equator is 10,000 metric lieues long.


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## Outsider

Thanks to you and *Kanoe* for pointing that out (my memory is not what it used to be). I have asked the moderators to correct the title of the thread.


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## robbie_SWE

In Romanian: 

_*20.000 de leghe sub mări*_

In Swedish:

*En världsomsegling under havet*

 robbiehttp://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_världsomsegling_under_havet


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## kusurija

cajzl said:


> One more comment:
> 
> The Czech translation is probably incorrect as there is a considerable difference between *líga* and *míle*:
> 
> 1 líga (league) = 3 míle (miles)
> 
> The correct translation would have to be either
> 
> *Dvacet tisíců lig pod mořem.*
> Literally: 20,000 (of) leagues under the sea.
> 
> or
> 
> *Šedesát tisíců mil pod mořem.*
> Literally: 60,000 (of) miles under the sea.
> 
> In fact, the voyage was three times longer than the common Czech translation suggests.


Apart from the fact that You are Czech, that seems (I don't know, what is the real fact) that Yours Czech isn't very fluent...
1. word "líga" I hear first time as Czech word in my life (but this may be my problem).
2. even if it exists in Czech, the correct case would be "líg" not "lig"
3. and finally: 20 000 and 60 000 is spelled as "dvacet tisíc" respective "Šedesát tisíc" but not as *Dvacet tisíců *or* Šedesát tisíců *as You wrote.
In such manner we say only in such cases as answer to such question: "Kolik (že bylo těch) tisíců?" - "Dvacet (tisíců)" ... and so on. Please, excuse me for impertinency...That was about problem...
So these translations are _not_ correct...

So for refference: 
1. Anglická míle = 1 609,344 m (metric) = 1760 yds
2. Námořní míle = 1 852 m (in past sometimes meant 1 853,2 m = 6080 feet (in USA = 1 853,249 m, 
in GB = 1 853.184 m) = approximately 1 minute of latitude) 
3. Japonská míle (*里 - ri*) = 12960尺(šaku) = 3927km
4. Čínská míle (*里 - ri*) = 500 m (approximately)
5. League: an obsolete unit of length of an hour's walk: usually equal to three miles...
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%8C
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/海里
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/マイル
http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Míle


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## kusurija

Flaminius said:


> Japanese has different translations:
> 海底二万里 Kaitē Niman-Ri
> 海底二万マイル Kaitē Niman-Mairu (mile)
> 海底二万リーグ Kaitē Niman-Rīgu (league)
> 
> Literally they mean 20 000 ri's/miles/leagues under the sea. No plural for tenThousands nor for ri's/miles/leagues miles, because the language does not have plural forms in the first place.


海底 - I thought, that it means approx. seas depth?
底 [tei(tē); soko] - bottom, sole, _depth..._
Could you explain it for me? Thx.


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## cajzl

> 1. word "líga" I hear first time as Czech word in my life (but this may be my problem).


It is really your problem. Jules Verne used the unit "lieue" (< Lat. leuca/leuga), so the Czech translator could preserve this term. Probably he did not want to use an uncommon term in the title.


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## Alijsh

alex.raf said:


> *Persian:*
> *20,000 Farsang Zireh Darya*
> *بیست هزار فرسنگ زیر دریا *
> 
> And that exactly means the same as English


The daryâ (sea) is in plural:

20,000 farsang zire daryâhâ
*بیست هزار فرسنگ زیر دریاها *


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## Nizo

In Esperanto, *Dudek mil leŭgoj sub la maroj *(Twenty thousand leagues under the seas).


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## Dr. Quizá

betulina said:


> In Catalan it is _Vint mil llegües de viatge submarí_ = 20,000 leagues of underwater journey.



As in Spanish (surprise ): Veinte mil leguas de viaje submarino.


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## Etcetera

Anatoli said:


> *Russian:
> *
> "20 000 (двадцать тысяч) лье под водой"
> "dv*a*dtsat' t*y*syach ly*e* pod vod*o*y"
> 
> "лье" seems like a transliteration, not sure why it was translated this way - too busy to check


Лье is very common in translations of French novels, as well as non-French novels about France. 

It's the same case with "mile" - it's always translated as миля. Maybe because it's rather unlikely that Frenchmen and Englishmen would count _kilometres _for sake of Russian readers. 

Good translations usually provide information on how long a "mile" or a "lieu" is.


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## jaxlarus

In Greek:

*20 000 [είκοσι χιλιάδες] λεύγες κάτω από τη θάλασσα*
Í.ko.si khi.lyá.des lév.yes ká.to a.pó ti thá.las.sa
Twenty thousand*s* leagues under *of* the sea

Note that thousand is in plural and the adverb κάτω [under] is followed by the preposition από [of]. َ
And I've never encountered the word λεύγα [league] in Greek anywhere but in this particular context!

Oh, well...


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## Flaminius

kusurija said:


> 海底 - I thought, that it means approx. seas depth?
> 底 [tei(tē); soko] - bottom, sole, _depth..._
> Could you explain it for me? Thx.


Yes, 海底 is literally sea bottom.


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## Thomas1

Etcetera said:


> [...]
> It's the same case with "mile" - it's always translated as миля. Maybe because it's rather unlikely that Frenchmen and Englishmen would count _kilometres _for sake of Russian readers.
> 
> Good translations usually provide information on how long a "mile" or a "lieu" is.


 
Hm... the French use kilometers as we do, don't they? Unless it's about the nautical mile (but it's the same here we also measure it in miles). Or do you, the Russians I mean, use kilometers for nautical distance as well?


Tom


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