A Greek Backcard Story

[Shaz]

The other evening I decided to translate a Greek backcard story, armed with nothing but some memories of once studying Ancient Greek, a love of fiddling with languages, and a small dictionary. I was pleased with the result and decided to share! Apologies if it's already been done.
Here's the backcard I used: http://mylittlewiki.org/wiki/File:Blue-greek-sunlight-backcard.jpg (not my picture, somewhat obviously)

Backcard Story!:
Once upon a time, in the fairytale land of PONY, there lived in the Castle of the Heavens, the Princess [Moondancer] with her little dragon.
The Castle of the Heavens was the colour of roses while the turrets were the deep blue of a spring sky.
When the Princess threw a party, the little dragon gave the order to open all the gates of the castle, to lower the drawbridge and let the trumpets announce the great celebration. Immediately, the joyous news spread to the ends of the earth. And then, all the Fairytale Ponies and the Pony Stars, looking their best, with their long hair beautifully combed, stunning in their beauty and grace, came to the Castle of the Heavens to honour the Princess.
The Star Ponies adorned the festivities with their dazzling beauty, while the unparalleled grace of the Fairytale Ponies made it all the more brilliant.
Sunbeam wore the sun in her hair, Twilight was adorned by stars, and Firefly came to the party with her beautiful blue mane streaming as she flew through the clouds.
Melody, the most coquettish of the Pony Stars, wore her beautiful notes as she went to the party with Glory, shining with grace and beauty.
Skydancer, the fastest of all the ponies, always reached the party first, unlike Parasol, who was always late.
Sunlight came with her excellent colours to brighten the party, while Starshine, together with Windy, brought to the celebrations happiness and high spirits.

Some notes:
1) Prigkipopaula, meaning 'princess', is Moondancer's Greek name, implying that Moondancer is the resident of the castle. Majesty, you've been usurped!
2) The castle's name is Kastro tou Ouranou. Ouranou comes from Ouranos, meaning heaven or sky. So Castle of Heaven, Sky Castle....whatever, we all know it's Dream Castle they're talking about!
3) Melody is said to be "naziara", which means she is full of affectation, putting on a cutesy act, something like that. It sounds a bit unkind! 'Coquettish' seemed the kindest translation I could come up with.
4) Starshine and Windy actually bring three things to the party, eutuchia (happiness, contentment; comes from an Ancient Greek word meaning good luck), kephi (merriment, high spirits, good humour) and drosia (coolness, dewiness - I think implying that Windy brings a cool breeze? I wasn't sure how to translate this so as not to ruin the flow of the English).
5) The word translated as party is "giortê", meaning celebration, feast day, festival, that sort of thing.

The Ponies' Names:
Glory is Augerinos, the Morning Star. Since in Greek folklore Augerinos is a boy who is turned into a star, Glory is probably meant to be male: that's perhaps why she goes to the party as the companion of 'coquettish' Melody!
Sunbeam is Chryssomallousa, "golden hair"
Firefly is Pêgasos, "Pegasus"
Moondancer is Prigkipopaula, "Princess"
Melody is Melodia (pretty obvious)
Twilight is Astrophengia, "starlight"
Starshine is Neraida, "fairy"
Skydancer is Astrapê, "lightning"
Windy is Anemos, "wind" or "air"
Moonstone is Ouranos, "heaven" or "sky"
Sunlight is Anatolê, "sunrise"
Parasol is Protobrochi, "first rain of autumn"

Hope you enjoyed my linguistic ramblings, and apologies for any inaccuracies, I'm not a linguistic genius, I'm just having fun

[Taffeta]

So cool that you did this We need more translated backcard stories for those in other languages.

Unfortunately there don't seem to be many in Japanese for me to tackle

[NightGliderSA]

This was great to read: thank you!

[pinkkittywinks]

I LOVE this and thank you so much for sharing it is quite appropriate as I have been working on a nirvana spotlight for Greek ponies lately

Love pkw xxx

[chateaushelton]

Thank you for sharing. I really enjoyed reading this and look forward more translations!

[Shaz]

Eep, I'm so pleased that people enjoyed this
I have a rough translation of the baby ponies' backcard which I will type up somewhen. It involves Baby Medley celebrating her birthday with a lot of balloons and getting the baby buggy as a present. Very cute!

@pinkkittywinks, I am looking forward to the Greek spotlight!

Post Merge: September 07, 2018, 01:37:20 PM

I got on and typed up my translation of the baby ponies' backcard . As before, there may be some inaccuracies.

Spoiler

Backcard Story:
Dusk had begun to fall in the forest as all the My Little Ponies gathered at the Stable Home to celebrate the first birthday of the Baby Pony.
There were multicoloured balloons all through the house and outside on the grass, all for the birthday party of the Baby Pony with the pretty notes.
The Baby Pony bounced in and out, scattering balloons and flying up high with her mummy. Suddenly, she saw her aunts and cousins - all the other baby ponies and their mummies - popping out from the beautiful multicoloured balloons. The Baby Pony bounced excitedly next to all the other Baby Ponies.
Then she opened her gifts and her surprised eyes saw the beautiful sunshade of the wonderful Baby Buggy. Her aunt gave her a pretty comb and two colourful ribbons for her mother to tie bows in her beautiful mane and long tail.
Later all the My Little Ponies sat down together. The Baby Ponies sat on the grass and played with the balloons.
The time passed and the Baby Ponies needed to sleep. So their mothers, after feeding them with their bottles, put them in the beautiful Baby Buggy and in a little while they were sleeping, and had the most beautiful dreams.

Notes:
1) Staulo-Spitaki is the name given to the ponies' home. Staulo I think means a stable. Spitaki is a sort of cute way of saying "home", and is used in a Greek version of the phrase "home sweet home". Staulo-Spitaki was the name given to the Greek release of the Show Stable.
2) The Baby Pony is described as having "pio charoumene nota", "the most happy notes" - thus implying that the story is about Baby Medley. I really struggled to find a way to translate this that made sense! If only El Greco had given the baby ponies names instead of calling them all Baby Pony.
3) Pony Kartosaki, literally "pony pushcart", is the Greek name for the Baby Buggy.


And while I'm rabbiting on about Greek things, here's some Greek pony names with translations.
Greek Pony Names:
- Blossom is Lily.
- Blue Belle is Elsê.
- Bow Tie is Chiounoula, meaning "snowball". This is also the Greek name for Snow White.
- Minty is Chloê, "grass" or "lawn". From an Ancient Greek word meaning a new green shoot growing in the spring.
- Butterscotch is Lemonitsa, "lemongrass".
- Cotton Candy is Rozalin - from roz meaning "pink".
- Lemon Drop is Zizi.
- Peachy is Melenia, meaning "honeyed" or "sugary".
- Then of course there are the Easter ponies, Lampaditsa ("little candle") and Paschalitsa, whose name means "ladybird" and also incorporates Pascha meaning "Easter".

[Carrehz]

These are really cute, thank you for translating and sharing them! I love seeing foreign backcard stories.

[farfallinaki]

How wonderful is that!! Im Greek but never realized that people from other countries would ever wonder what it says..And to tell you the truth i thought it was the same story in every card of every country!! Or am i wrong? Is it the same story?? Thank you very much for sharing this!!

[Shaz]

How wonderful is that!! Im Greek but never realized that people from other countries would ever wonder what it says..And to tell you the truth i thought it was the same story in every card of every country!! Or am i wrong? Is it the same story?? Thank you very much for sharing this!!

It would make sense for every country to have the same stories, but when have G1 ponies ever made sense?
A lot of ponies even have different stories in America and the UK, and that's supposed to be the same language! So, yeah, these stories are unique to the El Greco ponies. The first one appeared on the backcards of the Pony Star and Fairytale Pony sets, and the second appeared on the backcards of the Baby Ponies set.

I hope my translations are not really bad to someone who actually speaks Greek . I learnt Ancient Greek and have forgotten a lot of it, so most of my translating is just dictionaries and determination .

[Taffeta]

How wonderful is that!! Im Greek but never realized that people from other countries would ever wonder what it says..And to tell you the truth i thought it was the same story in every card of every country!! Or am i wrong? Is it the same story?? Thank you very much for sharing this!!

It would make sense for every country to have the same stories, but when have G1 ponies ever made sense?
A lot of ponies even have different stories in America and the UK, and that's supposed to be the same language!

In some cases, alterations that seem nonsensical, like switching in name variations and "Mummy" for "Mama" and leaving the rest the same O.o.

Hasbro are a law unto themselves...

@farfallinaki - Greek ponies are very popular in this place! They seem to be a very much beloved Nirvana, probably because of their interesting colour schemes!