going east?

[Aldarisvet]

Midnight_Carnival wrote:
In Russian, are Woses Leshii? I know that Leshii can be green men and may be more like spirits than flesh and blood (wood and sap?) beings, but in popular fiction I've encountered Leshi as "Ents" from Tolkein, so...?

Yes, they translated it as Leshii.
And again, I do not like it

In my imagination, Leshii is humanoid, 'lord' of forest, and by no means a walking tree. 'Leshii' is descending from 'les' thats mean 'forest'.
There is no some special terms for walking tree in Russian, and there is no walking trees at all in russian/slavic mythology, as I know.
Tolkiens idea of "Ents" was a revelation for me.

So it should really be translated as 'walking tree', but if 'ancient walking tree' is too long, I would prefer russian translation of tolkien word 'Ent'. There are lot of translations of Tolkien to Russian and I myself would prefer 'dreven' ('древень'), it descending from 'derevo' (tree), and if I try to explain it meanings to english speaker, it would be like 'living tree' or 'tree-man'. But I fear, that translators of Wesnoth to Russian was just a new-generation-gamers and probably did not know about "Ents" and it's translation to Russian.

Here is a Leshii in Russian wikipedia, and it looks like a oldman with long beard, with green skin, but of course he is not a tree, not in the least.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CB%E5%F8%E8%E9

P.S. Found that in russian wiki F.Phoenix suggested dreven in 2012, pity attention was not payed to it?
http://wiki.wesnoth.org/RussianListOfUnits

Midnight_Carnival wrote:
Question: in your various respective cultures, is there something which roughly equates to western fantasy? I mean fiction based losely on traditional myths and folk-stories created purely for the sake of entertainment.

Nothing compared in Russian.
Tolkien created a new world.
And I am not sure if it is bad or good. Our mythology stays unaffected by defacements that creates such popularity.
There were attemts to create 'russian fantasy' but they were puny. Some authors in russian tries to exploit idea of national fantasy, but they are not very popular.

I would say that Sapkovsky made a really good attempt to create 'slavic/poland fantasy' in his first book about Vedmak, but it all soon developed to much greater modern-fantasy world.

I myself dreamed for many years about creating ancient-russian-paganic-game, but... it is no more just a dream. In Wesnoth It could be realized as Era, though

[GunChleoc]

So, we checked how this issue was handled by other similar languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese) and found out that all of them translated the Wraith as "apparition". So, now "Spettro Guardiano" is known as "Apparizione" in Italian as well.

I like to steal from the Irish But then I make my own decisions, so my unit names ended up being quite different from the Irish ones.

[Aldarisvet]

By the way, I want to say that english creators of unit names should think about unit names so way that they would be easy to translate.

If you create such a line as

Cavalryman -> Dragoon -> Cavalier

then you by default creating a problems for a translator to other language.

And I really cannot guess why developers use dragoon name for level2 unit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragoon
_____________
The word dragoon originally meant mounted infantry, who were trained in horse riding as well as infantry fighting skills. However, usage altered over time and during the 18th century, dragoons evolved into conventional light cavalry units and personnel. Dragoon regiments were established in most European armies during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
_____________

And what about it in Wesnoth?

_______________

The more talented cavalrymen in the armies of Wesnoth are trained in the use of the crossbow, and matched with much more powerful steeds. Well-armored, and skilled in the use of their swords, these soldiers can drive forward and hold the ground they take. Their mobility and resilience make them of great value on the battlefield.
______________

Moreover, if you look to a sprite or portrait of dragoon, you will see heavily armoured unit (which is obviously can not get off the horse by himself ).

So it much better to translate would be something like Cavalryman- >Heavy Cavalryman -> Cuirassier

However, nor Dragoons, nor Cuirassiers never were equipped by crossbow

[iceiceice]

I see what you mean, but also I would say that there's some artistic license involved. There are no pistols in wesnoth, so replacing pistol -> crossbow and calling it a Dragoon doesn't seem totally unreasonable to me.

Maybe there should be a "Dwarven Dragoon" which is a Dwarf Thunderer riding a Gryphon

Edit: Also fwiw I feel the Dragoon unit is not totally realistic, I mean he's got a big sword, a shield on his other arm, the reins of the horse, and a crossbow? Where does he hold all that stuff?

Maybe the Dragoon unit also needs a "squire boy" animation for his crossbow :p
Maybe it can be strapped to his back or something but I think it could be pretty awkward.

[Aldarisvet]

Maybe there should be a "Dwarven Dragoon" which is a Dwarf Thunderer riding a Gryphon

Yes, that would be appropriate in English.
But in Russian this could create a deadlock for translator, I think.

We would have translate and write all 4 words: Dwarf Shooter riding [a] Gryphon. Or if skipping word Dwarf, 'Thunderer riding a Gryphon'.
Hmmm, may be 'Thunderer-on-Gryphon' (on russian) would be a version.

I see what you mean, but also I would say that there's some artistic license involved. There are no pistols in wesnoth, so replacing pistol -> crossbow and calling it a Dragoon doesn't seem totally unreasonable to me.

Edit: Also fwiw I feel the Dragoon unit is not totally realistic, I mean he's got a big sword, a shield on his other arm, the reins of the horse, and a crossbow? Where does he hold all that stuff?

Actually I want to say that in Russia mounted crossbowmans is a 'special theme'. There were much holywars in forums about it, whether they existed or not. So people really made investigations.

Finally researchers found that they existed. There is an article in russian wikipedia, and you will not find it in english wikipedia. You could see there how really mounted crossbowmans looked like. An to say the truth, this type of army was not very effective, and was not widely spread cause of it.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%EE%ED ... 7%E8%EA%E8

Historical reconstruction of medieval Europe is VERY popular in Russia. I suspect that Russians know about it more then europeans.

So heavy cavalry (especially SUCH heavy as in Dragoon portrait ) using crossbow is not 'not totally realistic'. It is absolute nonsense
The problem that it is takes really lot of time and efforts to recharge crossbow. On ground you can put it on earth, set against ground, using ground as a stop, and if mounted you should use some exotic technichue for it.

[pe_em]

Hello.

About translating. I started to translate the Khalifate faction. Even if it sounds well in English, it sounds weird in Polish.

do you think Wesnoth 'translates' the same in Polish, Chinese and Arabic?

No. But sometimes Wesnoth is untranslatable. Look e.g. at the Elvish Shaman's advances.

Poles have been here for a long time We've had our Polish Wesnoth site since 2008. But now we are a little more active here.

[Xara]

Question: in your various respective cultures, is there something which roughly equates to western fantasy? I mean fiction based losely on traditional myths and folk-stories created purely for the sake of entertainment. I know that in Japan there definately is, we see a lot of it in anime Are there a whole lot of 'fantasy' creatures/races who could feature in Wesnoth mods or campaigns? I'm not against the western fantasy genre, I just works like cooking, make what your guests eat, as long as its tasty and intersting nobody cares where the spices came from.

We have Pandaren, though it's created by Blizzard.
And we have "Chivalrous Wayists", it's imo possibly the coolest Chinese fantasy. They are like enlightened martial artists who follow the wayism to pursue "the ascendancy into the heavenly world" and thereby the immortality. But unlike the traditional followers of the wayism, they haven't forsaken their secular emotions yet. So they can love and hate and have adventures. They travel around to enrich their experiences, and destroy evil beings along the way. And they fight magically, like imbuing holy/arcane energy into the sword, control floating swords with the mind, and skysurfing (surf the sky on sword). There are series of RPG games like Chinese Paladin featuring such stories.

And as Aldarisvet said, Tolkien's work is unmatched.

[Aldarisvet]

Hello.
About translating. I started to translate the Khalifate faction. Even if it sounds well in English, it sounds weird in Polish.

Recently I surprisingly found that one my colleague is called Arif.
He is not Russian, he is Azerbaijanian, the only on in our team.
I heard his name before but even not bothered to remember it, he is working in another part of building, but still in my department.

Now I learned that Arif is the owner of mystical knowledge in sufism, and also arabic/muslim name of course.

[GunChleoc]

I am taking the Khalifate names as Latin transliterations of Arabic words rather than English names, so I left them unchanged. Of course, languages with non-Latin scripts would need to do their own transliteration at least, and match non-existing sounds to similar sounds in their language.

About the Dragoon, why not rename the unit in your language to something that fits. Never look at individual names but at the whole line and take artistic license - this was the only way that I could do it.

[Aldarisvet]

Never look at individual names but at the whole line and take artistic license - this was the only way that I could do it.

Agree, the same I wrote in Russian translation thread.
I suggested quite a number of renames, in many races. But seems the russian translation community is dead - no one answered.

For example, we cannot translate 'Deathblade' with some sense. Literally translated it is very strange among other names (how do you like when you upgrade Skeleton to either 'Blade of death' or 'Reborn' ??? ). I thinked a lot and find no beter than to name it just 'Fast skeleton'.
I suggested this line for undead warriors (in russian).

Skeleton -> Fast Skeleton || Dead Warrior -> Damned Warrior.

And also
Skeleton Archer ->Dead Archer -> Damned Archer

For now Banebow is already translated as Damned Archer, thats good. And Cocobone already translated as 'Dead Rider'.
So using this system we get that in russian all level 2 skeletial units are 'dead' and level 3 units are 'damned'.

[iceiceice]

Let me contribute 2 cents worth if I may --

So I was trying to remember my impression of the "Deathblade", and I think it's not just "fast skeleton". It's more like "crazed skeleton" or "insane skeleton". There's some implication that he's faster / more vicious because of madness / a tortured soul. I couldn't remember where I got this impression, but I think it was from the discussions of the portrait art:

http://forum.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php? ... e&start=75

Anyways maybe its fodder for translation? You can't hope to get all that stuff in but I agree that the word "Deathblade" is not exactly ripe for translation.

Edit: I guess the "crazed" stuff is only on the forums though and not in the help text for the unit, so maybe it's not a good idea. Maybe we should put some hint of it into the help text? I'm not sure when the last time we did that is.

[Aldarisvet]

I think it's not just "fast skeleton". It's more like "crazed skeleton" or "insane skeleton".

I would say it was totally not obvious for me. And especially not obvious from how it is now on Russian.
In Russian it is "Blade of Death" now. It looks like "Sword of Darkness". Is it possbile to catch that it is about some skeleton? Or even insane skeleton?

But you put me in the idea.

"Rabid skeleton"!

We have a proverb in Russia: For a rabid [mad] dog, seven miles is not a detour

So this is about our skeleton
He is furious, mad and angry (and fast, needless to say). That is means Rabid in Russia, but as I see, same in English.

[iceiceice]

Hehe, I like "rabid skeleton"

[Aldarisvet]

Also we got literally translated Elvish Shaman.
But in Russian there is strong association - Shaman is a spiritual leader of nothern or eastern tribes of Russia as Inuit or Chukchi. And shaman is always dancing around fire, sounding with tambourine. Shaman and tambourine are chained together.

Look - here is shaman
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%E0%EC ... h_drum.jpg

So elvish shaman is nonsense in Russia. Orcish shaman would be really good, but not elvish.

I have much better word in Russia instead, but it cannot be translated. It something like witch.

[Aldarisvet]

I have a question to developers concerning translation.
Yes, this is again about that problem fraction. Really, I myself hate I get into all this, not only you. But I can not left it, when I feel unjustice. I am really trying to be constructive.

The point is that if you feel that you have to inculde in fantasy world that obvious islamic/arabian fraction, and even have to retain arabian names of unit despite it creates obvious understanding problems, well, it is your language, it is your right finally. Though I thought the fantasy is international genre and English is International language. Well, the owner is the ruler.

My question is:
Is it obligatory to follow this arabian names of units in Russian translation, with this senseless transliteration from English (which is sensless transliteration from Arabian) or we can translate to Russian as we like. And I suppose It would be correct to translate Great Hero to Russian instead of transliterate Khalid to Russian cause there is no such word in Russian. It would be correct to translate Fire thrower to Russian then transliterate Qatif al-nar to Russian. Concerning the name of fraction, I am fully content with it, there is a word 'Khalifate' in Russian and I am not suggesting any renaming of it.

Depending on the answer, I will either continue developing my campaign with khalifate (and possible will try to participate in developing khalifate fraction) or will just replace it with Aragawith hero. It is all about so unimportant thing, still I can not continue my work without decision.