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Translating geographical or other names


Oracle

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On 26 novembre 2015 18:14:00, soltakss said:

If something is called Muse Roost does that mean that it's function if the roost of a muse? Probably not, so why translate it?

I always assumed Ethilrist named the place this way, because it's in the mountains and serves him as the place to weite his famous Memoirs...

so "Perchoir de la Muse" (des Muses?)

makes senses?

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  • 3 weeks later...

The next one may be a tricky one:

God Time vs. Gods Age

Both terms are used in HeroQuest Glorantha, and from my point of view these are different terms for the same mythological era, and therefore I would translate them to the same single term in German.

But I would like to hear, what the combined force of Glorantha experts thinks about this approach ... :)

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7 hours ago, Oracle said:

The next one may be a tricky one:

God Time vs. Gods Age

Both terms are used in HeroQuest Glorantha, and from my point of view these are different terms for the same mythological era, and therefore I would translate them to the same single term in German.

But I would like to hear, what the combined force of Glorantha experts thinks about this approach ... :)

First off - I am a German who has been writing and thinking about Glorantha for more than 25 years now, and I hardly ever saw the need to translate those terms, or locations. I think about Glorantha in English, mostly...

God Time is the magical realm that exists parallel to historical Glorantha, it is the full set of all the myths. Other terms for it are Cyclical Time, the Hero Planes, or simply the Otherworld.

Geek alert on: The Gods' Age is a (large) subset of God Time. There was a mythical era before the conception of gods, and there was a Gray or Silver Age following the Greater Darkness that followed the rules of God Time only to some extent. Geek alert off.

To the Orlanthi, those terms may be largely synonymous. To an eastern or draconic mystic, there might be a distinction which could be meaningful for early levels of mystical understanding. Malkioni westerners are treating the arrival of gods as a mistake in their creation myths which define their understanding of cyclical time and the hero planes.

 

There might be a better set of German terms for these concepts if we sit down and discuss what these terms are meant to convey. Direct translations aren't always the best options.

  • Like 2

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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