Re: [HOE] Translations

["Stephan Elsner" <schnabul@freenet.de>]

Hi there!

To "nationalize" some words in the translation is indeed very important. All
the phenomenons and strange people wandering the wasted world would have
been given many different names, always depending on the culture of the
land. Also many magic and mythology things will look totally different,
depending on the beliefs of the majority of the people that are or were
native to the particular country. Shamans (toxic or normal) would be Druids
in Europe. Though they fulfilled a similar function in the tribes as the
Indian shamans did, their magic and rituals would be totally different. You
would have to write a whole sourcebook on them to make it realistic.

As for a germanic way to say "Syker", I fear there will be none. The habit
of creating abbreviations is absolutely common to the english language, but
in German the words tend to get enlarged. "Psi-Krieger" has a medieval touch
to it, but is good and fits in the use of language after the bombs erased
civilization. Earlier, the psychic fighting forces in the german army would
have had a name like PKRK wich would stand for "Psionische
Krisenreaktionskräfte". But as the first sykers came from the US and the
fact that there are more and more anglicisms in the german language I think
it would be perfectly ok if a syker is just called syker by a german
survivor.

For Junkers its the same difficulty. "Junker" can´t be translated directly.
"Junkman" would be a "Müllmann". Although it is someone who picks up the
rubbish in front of your door and no well liked profession in germany, it
would fit to the junkers in a way. I think you could take Müllmann as a
slang word for the Junkers but they definitely wouldn´t like that and keep
calling themselves proudly "Technik-Druiden" or better "Maschinenpriester".

Hexslinger is most difficult. The word Gunslinger is absolutely american,
thats a cultural thing relating to the old west. The right translation is
"Revolvermann", but in Germany this is also only used in connection to
western movies. There was and is not such a thing in german culture. There
is no word for someone who draws fast and shoots well. If I was about to
make a HoE "Germany" Sourcebook, I would leave Gun(Hex-)slingers out. They
are too tightly bound to american culture, they wouldn´t make sense in
Germany.
The Hunting Grounds in german culture. Well, I think the priests and druids
of pre-christian times would have travelled there like the Indians, so there
should be names for it, too. I´ve got not so much knowledge of the ancient
religions of celtic, teutonic, allemanian, gothic and whatever tribes roamed
our region, but the deadlands are definitely the "Hölle" in our culture
which means Hell. Heaven is "Himmel". The Hunting Grounds could be called
"Zwischenwelt", which means "a world between".

thats my brainstorming, hope it helps

Stephan