Winnie-the-Pooh is the most popular children's book in the world. It has been translated into Italian four different times.
Winnie the Pooh first arrived in 1936, translated by Lila Jahn and published in Milan by Genio as L'orsacchiotto Ninni Puf, traduzione dall'americano. Con numerose illustrazioni di Edward H. Shepard.
She is especially known for creating the Italian names for Winnie and his friends. Her name for Winnie is Uini Puh. This name has stuck and Winnie is still known by that name in Italy.
Italian has 65 million native speakers and it is spoken as a second language by 14 million. Italian is a language read and spoken by sixty-five million native speakers in the European Union and a total of eighty-five million speakers altogether. A lengthy and detailed article in Adapting Canonical Texts in Children's Literature is entitled "It be or Not to Be a Canonical Text of Chindren's Literature Polish and Italian Translations of Winnie-the-Pooh" by Monika Wozniak.
The translator has given new names for the characters in the book. Winnie-the-Pooh is Uini-il-Puh. The rabbit is Rebit. Christopher Robin is simply Robin. Ishi Press has reprinted translations of Winnie-the-Pooh into 23 languages thus far. We have published it in Armenian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Korean, Persian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Hindi, Urdu, Khowar, Kalasha and Latin.
