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