Felmyr Place Names (WIP)

[Neyasha]

That's really interesting, Neyasha, I had not considered the challenges of translating story-relevant names into other languages (likely because when it comes to pop culture, I have Anglo-American privilege and usually don't have to think about it). I'm surprised that English-to-German translation suffers from this problem, though, since English is a Germanic language, although I suppose by now we've incorporated a lot of Romance/Latin words.

It's a bit hard to describe, at least in English (although I'm used to read in English a lot, my active language skills are quite rusty), but when it comes to Westeros the main problem is, that a lot of names are just literally translated, without considering the structure of typical German toponyms. And sometitimes there are just parts of the names translated, which leads to weird hybrid forms, for example: Mummer's Fort > Mummersfurt (but in German it should be Mummenfurt) or Casterly Rock > Casterlystein. Of course their are some names which work great, but overall Westeros doesn't have a "real" or "historical" feeling in the German translation, but more a "typical fantasy" feeling.

On the other hand, when it comes to Middle-earth (especially the Shire), the German place names don't just sound like translated from another language. There are wonderful names like Auenbronn, Michelbinge, Wasserau, Graue Anfurten or Ohnbüttel, which I could totally imagine on a real map - and although there are also some weird names, the overall feeling of the world just works really well.

And now I really have to find the "Hobbit Place-Names" in the library.