Someone Else wrote:
Root words (as close as I can ascertain - I'm not necessarily a reliable source):
Delver: From 'Delve' (to dig) and '-er'.
Hold: I believe this is actually an English word, though not much used. It simply means 'Fortress', although a direct translation of fortress might be a little unfavourable.
Tahnan or someone could probably do a better job than I, but is this what you were thinking?
I'm not positive I can do a better job, though I certainly offered some thoughts when this came up once before, in this topic:
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=15394 .
I am a linguist, but I'm not a polyglot, and I'm not a translator; translation is certainly its own skill. But as has been noted, a lot of words are going to be easy to translate. For what it's worth, here are some thoughts based on my list of game elements, which is to say "
things you can add to a room in the editor"
(accurate only through TCB). (And yes, I have a list of game elements lying around. Have you
played not dr0d 2? No, seriously, you should, it's terrific.)
Easy to translate literally: blue gate, bomb, brain, bridge, broken wall, citizen, clone potion, decoy potion, fuse, gel, gel baby, gel mother, green gate, guard, hot tile, invisibility potion, mimic potion, mirror, mud, mud baby, mud mother, negotiator, obstacle, orthogonal square, pit, pressure plate, rattlesnake, red gate, roach, rock giant, secret wall, speed potion, spider, stairs down, stairs up, tar, tar gate, tar baby, tar mother, trapdoor, tunnel, wall, water
In few languages should these be a problem, as all of these involve everyday senses of common words.
Easy to translate by ignoring them: aumtlich, fegundo, wubba
None of these are English words, so they can be left as-is. "
Aumtlich"
has a German sound to it (Googling suggests that it's Bavarian for "
officially"
?), "
fegundo"
an Italian sound, and "
wubba"
is...well, wubba. The former two really ought to be left as they are; "
wubba"
is a made-up word, but it's a kind of imitative sound to suggest something soft and friendly, so it might be worth "
translating"
it that way.
Not too hard, but be sure to catch the flavor: briar, goblin, orb, rock golem, scroll, serpent, stalwart
All of these words are probably possible to look up in a translation dictionary, as they're all English words, but you'll want to be careful to get the right senses. For instance, "
orb"
means "
ball"
or "
sphere"
, but you probably wouldn't want to translate it with your language's word for the black-and-white round thing you kick into a net, if you could help it. These words have an archaic feel to them--like "
hold"
, in fact--and you'll want a word that's relatively familiar and has the meaning but maybe sounds like something from fairy tales rather than the modern world. (For some, you can check things like old Bible translations--"
serpent"
is used in the story of Eden for the snake that tempted Eve. Or check to see what translations of Dungeons & Dragons use...that'll certainly help with "
golem"
, which is itself a loanword into English, so feel free to borrow it right back.)
Words that, well, Lord help you: adder, evil eye, force arrow, master wall, oremites, roach queen, seep, waterskipper, waterskipper nest, wraithwing
Not all of these are equally difficult, but they all present challenges.
Some of these are hard only only as a matter of choosing the right sense of an ambiguous word: "
force"
, "
master"
, "
queen"
.
As has been noted, an adder is literally a kind of snake, but is an English pun on "
addition"
. If I were translating, I'd probably (regretfully) lose the pun.
"
Evil eye"
is also a pun; in English, the "
evil eye"
is the (magical, thus imaginary) ability to harm someone by giving them a particularly intense stare. You can translate it literally, but be aware that it does have that other meaning.
"
Oremites"
is a tough one. (Google won't help: though it does turn up the wonderful headline
Oremites urged to help stop pesky bugs, it's referring to citizens of the city of Orem.) Probably the best way to translate it is as a compound of "
ore"
(metal that's mined from the ground) and "
mites"
(small biting bugs).
"
Seep"
is rarely a noun in English; it's a noun formed from the verb "
to seep"
, so translate accordingly. ("
One that seeps"
, perhaps, if that's an easy-to-form single word.)
"
Waterskipper"
is a made-up compound of "
water"
(duh) and "
skipper"
(in this sense, something that can "
skip"
, which is to say travel lightly and easily across the surface of the water).
"
Wraithwing"
is similarly a made-up compound of "
wing"
(duh) and "
wraith"
, an archaic word for "
ghost"
.
---
I hope some of that helps people in translating. As a final word of advice:
when in doubt, ask. Going to a dictionary of translations and taking the first word it suggests is how you end up with, well, bad translations. If a word is ambiguous in English, especially because it covers two different senses that your language distinguishes, ask which sense it evokes for English-speaking DROD players. ("
In my native Etruscan, we have a verb that describes the slow movement of water and one that describes the slow movement of thicker liquids, both of which seem to be 'seep' in English. Which should I use?"
That sort of thing.)