The Little Prince in Picard

German publisher Tintenfass is well known to collectors of foreign language editions of the Little Prince. Tintenfass has published no fewer than 20 translations of The Little Prince into various dialects and regional languages threatened with extinction. If you happen upon a Little Prince in Mauritian Creole, Scottish Gaelic or Aramaic, that will be the work of Tintenfass!

More recently, the publisher called on Bruno Delmotte, director of the Maison de la Culture in Tournai, to translate Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s tale into Picard, a language of northern France. Picard is a demotic language, more often spoken than written.  It was a real challenge for Bruno Delmotte, who has read the story several times, gradually to transform it into a language close to his heart.