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Topic : Who translates made-up words from popular fiction into other languages? When an author produces a popular fictional work (take Harry Potter) that's translated into many languages not native to - selfpublishingguru.com

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When an author produces a popular fictional work (take Harry Potter) that's translated into many languages not native to the author, who decides how fictional words from that work are translated?

In the above example, I'm thinking specifically of words like "muggle", "quidditch", and "squib." Since J.K. Rowling presumably doesn't speak, say, Japanese, does she have a say in just how these words are translated into Japanese? Or would that simply be the job of the Japanese translators to create words at their own discretion based on what they know of the fictional words as Ms. Rowling used them in English?

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Who cares, and why would they? I suggest Tolkien's guide posed no problem whatever for any translator.

All names have meaning in their original languages and that meaning might be ignored, copied or translated into any or every other language.

As an obvious instance English Linda is a direct copy from Spanish, where it means lovely. In India, whatever their native language, some women are given exactly that Lovely as their first name, and why not?

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This is, indeed, the translator's job.
For example, here's Gili Bar-Hilel, talking about translating the Harry Potter books into Hebrew:

Fantasy books are often full of imaginary words created by the author and I am curious how you go about translating such words. Do you rewrite them in Hebrew, make up your own words to replace them, or use some other method?
GB: I play it by ear, depending on my understanding of the original. When an author is as playful and inventive as Rowling, I feel the translation should be playful and inventive as well, and I enjoy making up my own words. But sometimes invented words are just a brand name or something pseudo-scientific, and the Hebrew should follow that as well.

That being said, translators may be constrained by the translations of previous books in a series -- I've heard them complain about clumsy choices made by their predecessors...

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