Sunday, April 9, 2017

The book translated into the most languages is...





...The Little Prince*
, by Antoine de Saint Exupéry, which was just translated into its 300th different language.

The title of the book should sound familiar, and there's a solid 50/50 shot you were forced to read it in high school or in a freshman college class, where you likely slacked off, so things are foggy, but you entirely recognize the title from somewhere. (No, it wasn't made into a Disney movie. Yet.)

The novella, written in 1943 by the Frenchman de Saint Exupéry, has found a worldwide following in the decades since its creation. The 300th translated language of the book was in Hassanya, a North African version of Arabic, popular with Moorish tribes in southern Morocco, which is where Antoine de Saint Exupéry once lived and worked at an aéropostale** for France.

That said, there are an estimated 6,500 spoken languages in the world, and 4,500 of those are spoken widely. So, yeah, The Little Prince has a ways to go.



*The Bible and other religious texts have more translations, but they're not really gripping page turners written on a whim for artistic merit, y'know?

**Before it was a retail store for preppy people with way too much discretionary income to burn, an aéropostale was a French airmail company. I assume they were fashionably dressed, though.




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