Topic: Translations of Shadow World

[Der Graumantel]

Hi there,
Currently I´m much into translating Shadow World stuff for gaming, since I want to play in my native language.

The thing I want to discuss is the translaton of Shadow World terms. That is names of locations, devices, peoples and events. So this is mostly for the gamers from outside of North America, Australia and Great Britain, but of course they are invited post their ideas, if any.

My approach in translating is to let the players experience the setting as the normal native speaker would experience it. That is to give them the same relation to Kulthea as native english speakers have.
The hardest part is Rhakhaan, course this realm has obvious connections to Rennaisance England (Names, Nobilety titles and mhh... weather;) but well worth it, I think.

So what I do is basicly transforming names of cities and places and persons into their (in my case) german equivalents (as far as possible, no one would translate Esov Turic into something else [or even german ]).

An Example might be the barony of Novington, for it sounds quite british.
The suffix -ton is equivalent to the german suffix -[ing]en (like Reutlingen).
so we have Novingen. Looks not that german so I try to get rid of the "v", wich is very untypical in german town names and replace it with "w".
Nowingen... Now I want it to sound really german (Terry will kill me )  So I put a mutated vowel (Umlaut) in it.
Nöwingen...         sounds and looks quite familar to my eyes.

This procedure is pretty close to what Magaret Carroux did with the Shire and all in there in the german translation of "The Lord of the Rings".

Do you think its the appropriate way of doing it and of course, what do you do??
What are your general thoughts on tranlations of works of fiction?
How do you translate (not only in german!):
-Wars of Dominion
-Cloudlords
-Loremasters
-The Silver Dawn
-etc...??

Thanks
Ben

P.S. I started this topic for I´m dreading the release of the german Shadow World setting with a translation as bad as the german Rolemaster rule books. ( its brrr... just very bad)

[Schwarz]

I usually keep the names. Shadow World is a big place, if i want a place with german names (I am a german myself) i would take a new area and populate it. For names i would use the Postleitzahlenbuch or a map of germany. If the Area is nicely described i would contact Terry if it can be used officially for the area in question. (Multinationality would greatly enhace Kulthea i think) Most of the people in my group like the foreign names, the same might be true for english speaker for a german feeling part of kulthea.

[Chaman]

In these cases:
-Wars of Dominion
-Cloudlords
-Loremasters
-The Silver Dawn

 I would go with a more litteral translation,
these may be too litteral but...
-Cloudlords = Wolkelord
-Loremasters = Wissenmeister
-Silver Dawn = Silber Morgengrauen / Silber Morgen
-Wars of Dominion = Kriege der Herrschaft

In some cases you might want to change the name but keep the meaning, try a thesaurus in those cases or shorten a word or two, like I did on Silver Dawn.

[Schwarz]

I would tend to

Cloudlords - Herrscher/Herren/Beherrscher der Wolken/des Himmels
The Silver Dawn - Das siberne Grauen des Morgens or Das silbern(e) (gl?nzernde) Morgengrauen
Loremasters - Bewahrer des Wissens
Wars of Dominion - Die Unterwerfungsschlachten

[Der Graumantel]

Hmm. I?m not for litteral translation. especially not in fantasy, because:

1. Fantasy is in some part a romantic(not meant in the kitch way) kind of fiction (even badasses as Erikson, if you look at it from a literure point if view). Romantic ist very much about a highly aesthetic writing style, even in brutal scenes like howardian bloodlust or eriksonian war crimes, but especially for tolkinian grandeur. Here I try to translate the feeling of the word, too.
A good example is the german translation of Bilbos sword Sting. The litteral translation of sting into german is Stachel. The thing is, stachel has not that fast energetic sound that has Sting, wich is very fitting for this daggerlike shortsword. So what did the german translator do, she called it Stich, wich is equivalent to the english word stab. a very good translation in my eyes.

2.Fantasy takes place in a reality, that is very different from our own. Many authors give the reader a start into their world that has some connection to ours, before he leads us into the more exotic aspects of his world. Martin does it by the names and the culture of Westeros, wich relates closly to the english high medieval period. Toklien does it with the wellgrounded familliar Shire. And Terry Amthor does it with Rhakhaan and its english flair in his Shadowstone Chronicles.
In the german translation of "The Lord of the Rings" ,Magaret Carroux translates Hobbiton as Hobbingen in the same manner, as I did translate Novington above.
By that she creates the "gate to the fantasy world" effect for a german audiance. Thats exactly what I?m trying to do.

3. English sounds just to modern for fantasy in germany (and I guess in most other countries, too)

To come back to the Shadow World and my sample translation problem children.

-Cloudlords= Windf?rsten or Windherrn. Of course the german word wind is the same as wind in english , but the german word for cloud (Wolke) has not a good sound, so I have to accept the difference in meaning.

-Silver Dawn. Silbermorgen. Wow never thought of that, but it is really good. Simple, catchy and sounds good. I had ideas in mind, that were far to bulky and artficial (very similar to the ones by Schwarz).

-Loremasters. Still not happy with what I have, but I guess i give Die Gelehrten a chance.

-Wars of Dominion: your ideas are cool but I?m still not sure...

So far thanks for your imput.
Ben

[Chaman]

What about Himmelherrn and Wissensch?tzer,

You get some alliteration with the first, and sch?tzer appears to be more active then Bewahrer (guard/preserver versus just preserver)

you'll have to forgive me, German is obviously not my first language and it's been a long time since I've used it, so I might build some bad combinations and not realize it. Which might be why I stumbled on Silber Morgen as Silber Morgengrauen seemed repetitive to me and just a tad too long.

Die Unterwerfungsschlachten is something that would never have occured to me and the translation back to english is puzzling but hey, it makes some sense.

[Dax]

Cloudlord = Windfürst is nice
even
Wars of Dominion = Die Unterwerfungsschlachten sounds good,
but "Kriege der Herrschaft" could be turned to sound better
= Herrschaftskriege.

And for Loremaster why not just "Kundige" or "Wissende" ?

And thanks for the idea to translate with a Romantic touch.

[Chaman]

I wasn't sure that would be acceptable for the war; but I like it

Part of it is reversing the translation, it just doesn't seem to encompass the sense; I'm also trying to capture some of the feel of the word.

For example, what's the difference between a diver and a master diver, or a parachutist and a master parachutist? each group shares the same skill sets, but one just knows what he is doing the other is a master at it. Granted Kundige has a bit of mystery that could work, heck Robert Jordan did very well with the Wise Ones.

but I'm not German or even European, there may be some contexts of certain words that I am unaware of.
So, take my ideas with a grain of salt; if you don't like it, don't use it, if it sparks ideas that get you a better phrase or name, even better.

[Vurkanan]

Windf?rsten for Cloudlords is beautiful.

For Loremasters I'd propose "Die Wissenden". It has more mystery than "die Gelehrten", maybe even a slightly divine quality.

How about "Entscheidungskrieg" for Wars of Dominion? I wouldn't keep the plural in wars. To make it sound bigger, you could say "Der gro?e Entscheidungskrieg".

[Vince]

In Spanish:

-Wars of Dominion    - Guerras del Dominio
-Cloudlords             - Se?ores de las Nubes
-Loremasters          - Maestros del Saber
-The Silver Dawn     - El amanecer plateado (o el amanecer arg?nteo)


Anyway, we usually say Loremasters in english. There a few words that we say only in english like : Bladeturn, Blur, Reverse Stroke, haste, parry...

[Voriig Kye]

In Spanish:

-Wars of Dominion    - Guerras del Dominio
-Cloudlords             - Se?ores de las Nubes
-Loremasters          - Maestros del Saber
-The Silver Dawn     - El amanecer plateado (o el amanecer arg?nteo)


Anyway, we usually say Loremasters in english. There a few words that we say only in english like : Bladeturn, Blur, Reverse Stroke, haste, parry...

We tend to dislike the way most translations sound in spanish, so the original names are ussualy kept:
- Las "Wars of Dominion"
- Los "Cloudlords"
- Los "Loremasters"

The same goes for spells. The main reason here is that the translations we have are from Spain. And although we also speak spanish in Argentina, we don't use phrases like "Luenga Puerta" to translate Long Door, since they don't even make sense for us. Some words are just unknown/different here.
Maybe if someone where to translate for our specific dialect of spanish it would seem more natural, but after so many years of using our own spanglish when playing RM, I think there's no coming back.

[Vince]

Voriig in Spain we also don't use Luenga Puerta never. Luenga is a very rare word, that although i now what it means, i have never heard or readed anywhere in spanish.  .

 It's an aberration of the JOC translators, i don't know why.

but after so many years of using our own spanglish when playing RM, I think there's no coming back.

Yes, same happens to us

[Arioch]

Maybe if someone where to translate for our specific dialect of spanish it would seem more natural, but after so many years of using our own spanglish when playing RM, I think there's no coming back.

Also here in Italy we use a mix of italian and english, calling spells and other actions with their english name or taking english words and making them "italian" (like when we are talking of casting a spell: in italian it would translate into "lanciare un incantesimo", but we say "castare", from the english verb "to cast" plus the italian ending for the verb "-are"  )

How do you translate (not only in german!):
-Wars of Dominion
-Cloudlords
-Loremasters
-The Silver Dawn

In italian:
- Wars of Dominon = Guerre del (per il) Dominio
- Cloudlords = Signori delle Nubi
- Loremasters = Signori del Sapere
- TSD = L'Alba d'Argento

[rraarrgghh]

One of my classical questions: How would you translate "the Unlife" into your languages. I never found a satisfactory translation to german.

rraarrgghh

[egdcltd]

das un Leben? das Anti-Leben?

[Voriig Kye]

One of my classical questions: How would you translate "the Unlife" into your languages. I never found a satisfactory translation to german.

rraarrgghh

Following the style previously mentioned
"El Unlife" (although whether to use the male pronoun is a debatable issue)

[munchy]

In Dracula I think they used Nicht-Toten for undead, so it would be Nicht-Leben ... not satisfactory though, IMHO.