Forum > Shadow World
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 :nono:]).
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 :confused:) 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) :P
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
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page