• NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.

D+D in your language (new words, post #23)

Seeing as my native language is English, my German is rusty (and German is already well-covered), and I am an artificial language geek, I will present the following terms in Loglan:

Dungeon: hasfa gurlii (lit. house for strange creatures)
Dragon: dralu
Fighter: kamda (roughly, combatant)
Wizard: bukmaj (lit. book mage, Sorceror would be "dralmaj", dragon mage)
Rogue: dupypeu (lit. deceive person)
Cleric: tepypeu (church person) or tepmaj (church mage), possibly "gadmaj" (god mage)
Evil: zavkao (bad acting)
Good: gudkao (good acting)
Combat: lopo kamda (literally, the mass of all combat incidents)
Sword: blatau (blade weapon)

Archer: borpli (bow user)
Spell: po madji (an act/incident of magic)
Fireball: fagbalma
Mount: nuniaski (passive form of "niaski", animal sit)
Dwarf: miurpeu (mining person)
Elf: naryspipeu (nature spirit person)
Halfling: cmapeu (small person)
Orc: vanyniapeu (violent animal person)
Armour: curyresfu (safe dress; "battle armor" would be curyresfu lopo kamda)

Technically, the terms for "Dwarf", "Elf", "Halfling", and "Orc" would be replaced with new predicates based on what these people called themselves-- essentially, converting the Dwarven word for "dwarf", and so on, into new Loglan predicates.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

xcheefoo said:
A little bit more in russian (my 1st language)

Dungeon = Krepost, zamok, bashnya

Don't the words 'Krepost, zamok, and bashnya' all refer to above-ground structures? (Fort/Fortress, castle, and tower respectively)

As I noted above, the translation of 'dungeon' is tricky, since it has a D&D-specific meaning. However, I think an essential part of the meaning is 'underground'.

I've seen words used to translate D&D computer games but forget them. Something like 'Podzemlya' would make sense. Any ideas?
 

Hebrew, second batch of words:

Archer: kaSHAT
Spell: KEsem
Fireball: kaDUR esh ("ball fire" literally)
Mount (the noun, not the verb): No good traslation comes to mind, really. "raCHAV" is the person riding the mount, but the mount itself... no.
Dwarf: gaMAD
Elf: Elf. There is no Hebrew equivalent. I've seen translation as "Ben Lilit" (or "Bat Lilit" female, "Bnei Lilit" plural).
Halfling: zuTON
Orc: Orc. No translation here that I know of.
Armor: shirYON

Regarding Rouge, another translation may be pirCHAch, which is something like "scoundral" or "brat". But really, I'm sticking ot old editions and calling it thief (gaNAV).
 

tarchon said:
In case no one else appreciates that, I believe it literally means "troll-formula."

Well, it certainly sounds more fun that way. :)

I hope you excuse me if I saunter off-topic here, but it is a thread on semantics, right?

The word "troll" by itself is a noun with the same meaning as troll in English, i.e. big, nasty monster with regeneration. However, in this case, it's a derivative from the verb "trolla" which translates as "to do magic" in English. "Formel" is most often (in my professional environment at least) used in the sense of a mathematical equation or algorithm. Accordingly "formelsamling", which roleplayers in Sweden call their spellbook, to most other people is a book of equations and algorithms that you bring to your physics exam. :)

An interesting side note: In Swedish, Formula-1 racing is known as "Formel 1"...

Cheers,
Meadred
 

Archer - Arciere
Spell - Incantesimo
Fireball - Palla di Fuoco
Mount - Cavalcatura
Dwarf - Nano
Elf - Elfo
Halfling - WHFRP translates it as "Mezzuomo"; most other systems including D&D keep "Halfling"
Orc - Orco
Armor - Armatura
 

Meadred said:
Well, it certainly sounds more fun that way. :)

I hope you excuse me if I saunter off-topic here, but it is a thread on semantics, right?

The word "troll" by itself is a noun with the same meaning as troll in English, i.e. big, nasty monster with regeneration. However, in this case, it's a derivative from the verb "trolla" which translates as "to do magic" in English.

I would guess that the verb comes from the noun in Swedish. In Old Norse, troll is a fairly common noun, but I can't recall encountering trolla as a verb. The Zoëga dictionary doesn't have it either (http://www.northvegr.org/zoega/h442.php), so it would probably be a late development, the notion of spell-casting as "trolling." seiða seems to be the usual verb in ON (or just to speak or chant galdra, magic). Curiously, terms for magic seem to have evolved very rapidly in Germanic languages, so most of the modern tongues use different roots and idioms.
 

Here is the Swiss-German version ;)

Archer - Bogäschütz
Spell - Zaubrspruch
Fireball - Füürball
Mount - Ritttier
Dwarf - Elf
Halfling - Halbling
Orc - Orck
Armor - Rüschtig

Dungeon - Chällergwölb
Dragon - Drachä
Fighter - Kämpfer
Wizard - Zauberer
Rogue - Dieb
Cleric - Prieschter
Evil - Bös
Good - Guet
Combat - Champf
Sword - Schwärt
 

Here is the norwegian (even though we often use the english word pronounced in Norwegian we have Norwegian words for most of this)

Dungeon - Fangehull eller Hule
Dragon - Drage
Fighter - Kriger
Rogue - Snik ('Tyv' is thief and back in the old days this translation was good)
Cleric - Prest
Evil - Ond, Ondskap (Ond describes something Ondskap is 'the evil'
Good - God
Combat - Kamp
Sword - Sverd

Archer - Buskytter
Spell - Seid, formel (We don't have a good Norwegian word for this)
Fireball - Ildkule
Mount - Ridedyr
Dwarf - Dverg
Elf - Alv
Halfling - Unknown in Norwegian mythology, but Nisse could be used. Or Hobbit ;)
Orc - Ork
Armour - Rustning

Håkon
 

OK, Japanese isn't my first language, but I'll have a go at it...

Archer - ite
Spell - Jyubaku jujutsu
Fireball - Hinotama
Mount - Uma (Horse, there is no general word in Japanese for 'mount'.)
Dwarf - kobito
Halfling - kobito
Orc - youkai
Armor - yoroi
Dungeon - chikarou
Dragon - ryu
Fighter - senshi (fighter), bushi (warrior)
Wizard - mahoutsukai
Rogue - gizouku (chivalrous thief), kusemono (ruffian; villain; knave; thief; suspicious fellow)
Cleric - jyusou (head priest of a -Buddhist- temple) kitoushi (non-combatant type priest in an army. Kind of like an army chaplin)
Evil - aku
Good - yoi
Combat - sentou (combat), hakuheisen (hand-to-hand combat)
Sword - katana


Pronunciation help= Vowels are as follows…
" Ah (a), we (i) soon (u) get (e) old (o). "

{Edit, asked the wife, fixed some mistakes}
 
Last edited:


Into the Woods

Remove ads

Top