Hi!
We all know the land before time as this as "the land before time". However, I was wondering about what the land before time is called in other countries. So far I have only a few results, but there are some variations in meaning.
In the Netherlands it is called "Plaetvoet en zijn Vriendjes". Littlerally this means "Flatfoot and his friends" unless I'm very mistaken.
As the title suggest there are some own names for the characters too in the Netherlands.
Littlefoot is Platvoet
Cera remained Cera
Petrie is fladder (I think an English equivalent would be flapper)
Ducky is Beckie
Spike would be Punt (I suppose this is a translation of Spike)
Chomper would be Happer (which I think is a rather good translation of Chomper)
Many (not all) other names remained the same in Dutch. They can be looked up on the excellent
webpage of our member Platvoet en zijn Vriendjes.
The French title of the land before time is "Le Petit Dinosaure et la vallÈe des merveilles". I'm very, very poor in French, but I think this would literally mean "The little dinosaur and the Valley of wonders".
Littlefoot is Petit-Pied (litteral translation of Littlefoot I think)
Cera is CÈra (so only the French pronounciation sign was added)
Ducky remained Ducky
Petrie is PÈtrie (same as Cera)
Spike became Pointu (as literal a translation I think as there can be)
Inspite of the title the Great Valley is literally translated as "la Grande VallÈe", so the "vallÈe des merveilles" seems to be limited to the title (though I'm not a hundred percent certain about this).
There is a French version of "If we hold on together".
The sequels run just under the label "Le Petite Dinosaure" plus the sequel title I think:
In German "The land before time" is "In einem Land vor unserer Zeit" which is literally "In a land before our time".
The main characters all kept their English names (which I expect might confuse some of the younger watchers of LBT IX when one of the tinysaurs points out the meaning of Littlefoot's name).
A few background character's names have been changed.
Mr. Thicknose for example was poorly translated to "Meister Plattnase" (literally "Master Flatnose").
There is a German version of If we hold on together. It varies somewhat from the content of the original song, but for the honor of the translators I must say that I consider it impossible to make a good one to one translation into German, so they did farely well.
In Swedish "The land before time" is "Landet fˆr l‰ngesedan" I don't know enough Swedish to give a literal translation of this. I can only guess that it comes farely close to the original meaning.
Littlefoot is Lillefot (probably a translation though it might be the English name just made sound Swedish without actually translating it. I really don't know for sure).
Ducky I think was turned into Kvacki (no idea at all about the meaning).
This is an image of the Russian cover of LBT 8 showing us the Russian spelling of the land before time.
I'm not a hundred percent certain, but I think the language on this cover is Polish.
I found what I expect (from the country codes in the urls) to be the Spanish, Czech, Turkish, and the Hungarian version of some covers too, but those images were so small you couldn't even read the script.
I would be happy for this list to be continued by anyone who can contribute more (I think I saw Japanese and Arabian covers too at google, but I didn't refind them now). New Order, what is the land before time in Portugese and are the character names different?
