In his memoir, The SPAREe, published last January, Prince Harry recalled the first meeting between his wife Meghan, William and Princess of Wales. As the Daily Mail pointed out on Sunday 10 December, a translation error led to the belief that the princess had snubbed the American actress, wrongly.
The importance of words. Back in January, Prince Harry detailed in his autobiography The Substitute the first time his wife Meghan Markle met his brother William, shortly after they met at the end of 2016. However, his memoir was accidentally released in Spain just days before its official publication date and a translation error, spotted by the Daily Mail on Sunday 10 December, has fuelled rumours that the Princess of Wales made sure to avoid her brother-in-law’s companion. In the book, we learn that Meghan met William at Kensington Palace and gave him a hug, taking the prince by surprise as he is not used to warm embraces. After an exchange of pleasantries and some banter, Harry asked his brother where Princess of Wales was, to which William replied: “Outside with the children”. It was precisely this sentence that was mistranslated into Spanish.
The Spanish version of the book transcribed William’s reply as follows: “Fuera, con los ninos”, which means “Outside, with the children”. This translation suggested that Princess of Wales was nearby in the garden with George and Charlotte (Louis was born later in 2018) rather than away from home. Readers felt that the then Duchess of Cambridge simply snubbed Meghan, refusing to enter the house to greet her, when in fact the mother of the family was not at home that day. Harry didn’t seem to have a problem with this, however, and replied: “Ah, too bad. Next time!” Our confrères added that although Harry recounted Meghan’s first meetings with her grandmother Elizabeth II, her father Charles, Camilla and William in his pages, he never described what happened when she was introduced to Princess of Wales.
Meghan Markle affected by another translation error
Translations are definitely playing tricks on the British royal family… In 2019, Meghan Markle accused some members of the Windsors of making racist comments about their unborn son, Archie, in her resounding interview with Oprah Winfrey. Since then, several names have become the subject of rumours. At the end of November, the matter was revived with the publication of Omid Scobie’s new book, Fin de règne. And with good reason: in the edition translated in the Netherlands, the names of the two people who questioned the Duchess of Sussex about the colour of her son’s skin were revealed.
The Dutch translator of Omid Scobie’s book, Saskia Peeters, has assured us that she did not get her facts wrong, as the Daily Mail reported: “As a translator, I translate what is in front of me. She continued: “The names of the royals were there in black and white. I didn’t add them. [I just did what I was paid to do, which was to translate the book from English into Dutch”, she declared.
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