One of the comic book adventures of Asterix has been translated into a rare Swedish dialect -- spoken only by a few thousand in Western Finland -- the project director told AFP. Originally published in 1975, Asterix and the Great Crossing is as of this week available in grondspraatsi as part of efforts to keep the dialect alive. Set in the Roman Empire in 50 BC, 40 albums of Asterix comics -- telling stories of a small village resisting Roman rule -- have been published since 1959 when it was created by author Rene Goscinny and illustrator Albert Uderzo. While the first Asterix album was translated into Swedish in 1970, project director John Hagnas told AFP that the grondspraatsi-edition is “the first official translation into a Swedish dialect in the Nordics”. Finland has two national languages, Finnish and Swedish.

Most of the approximately 5.5 million inhabitants speak Finnish as their mother tongue, while Swedish is spoken as a first language by just over five percent of the population. Swedish-speaking Finns, most of whom live in the southern and western coastal regions of the country, speak several old local dialects -- some of them unintelligible even to other Swedish speakers in Finland due to their uniqueness. “We want to strengthen the self-esteem of the people who still speak the dialect”, Hagnas added.

A long-time comic enthusiast and collector, in 2018 he came up with the idea to translate the Asterix-album into the Swedish dialect spoken in his hometown of Kokkola in Western Finland. Called “Reisa yvi Atlanten,” the album was translated by local experts Bror Hagstrom and Ragny Mutka to help preserve the local dialect, spoken by only an estimated 7,000 persons. “We have added our own colorful words and expressions to the album, but the storyline follows the original,” Hagnas said. A hit with Finns, the Asterix adventures have already been translated into four smaller Finnish dialects -- Karelian, Rauma, Savo and Stadi -- in addition to standard Finnish. Worldwide, the albums have been translated into more than 100 languages and dialects. — AFP