This is a question I’ve been contemplating specifically for works with an educational component, like Arkuwar. Translation always has tradeoffs, but when the goal is to entertain people and also have them be interested and learn something new, I’m never quite sure how to make those tradeoffs.
For example, Arkuwar mentions an Egyptian pharaoh by name. He’s best known in English as Ramses II or Ramses the Great. That’s an Egyptological transcription of his primary name. So that’s how I ended up naming him in Arkuwar. But alternatives include:
Ri’a-mase-se, an English rendering of the actual Egyptian pronunciation
Riamasesa, the transcription the Hittites used
User-ma’at-ra, an Egyptological transcription of his royal name (the name he used as king)
Was-mu’a-re’a, an English rendering of the actual Egyptian pronunciation
Wasmuaria, the transcription the Hittites used
Ousimares, an Ancient Greek transcription of that
Ozymandias, another Ancient Greek transcription, less accurate but more famous
Or to put it another way, saying “Ramses II” is the most recognizable to the audience, but “Wasmuaria” is more Hittite in flavor, and “Ozymandias” is very literary.
Similarly, I referred to the country as “Egypt”, since that’s what people will recognize nowadays. But the Hittite name for it was “Mizri”, and the Egyptian name is usually transcribed as “Kemet” or “Kuma”; both of those are more historically accurate to the period. If I wanted to be really academic, I could call it Mizri[1], but how many people enjoy footnotes in their IF?
Other people who have made or played educational works involving other languages, what choices did you go with?
I think if I was playing something specifically pitched as educational, I’d definitely be cool with footnotes. And there’s a long tradition of footnotes in IF, too, I think going back to Hitchhiker’s? So I don’t think the audience would find it too unwieldy, either.
My serious answer from the old writing days is that the choice should best reflect the author’s goals for the piece. And this has already been laid out in the OP. An author who wants people to think of Shelley might choose Ozymandias.
My rule was always to just give people a clean internet search. It’s very reasonable to expect people to look into things they don’t know, so long as you are writing for curious people. Running through the options above: Riamasesa, User-ma’at-ra, Ousimares, and Ozymandias have pretty clean searches, provided quotation marks are used.
I am experiencing a lot of search interference for all the place names. But the poet in me likes Mizri the best because I have no expectations when I hear it. I also just like the sound. A footnote might be good? Or just a parenthetical notation the first time? Personally, if I used it, I’d just say where it is in the game description and never explain in-game.
But again, I think the ideal reader is a curious one and building for them makes sense.
e: My version of this was “Will the people in workshop get my Four Quartets reference?” etc
It’s IF. I assume that for the average player it won’t be crucial if the kingdom of Egypt is ruled by king Ramses or if the kingdom of Grx’uuh’Frzzz is ruled by king Hr’sf’argh. A player with a sweet tooth for Egyptian mythology might prefer the latter variant though. Count me in!
I think that if I didn’t know Ozy or whatever name you decided to use in a IF game about a land that looks like ancient Egypt was Ramses, I’d believe it’s a made up name like those given to the many mummies of priests or cultist in Egyptian Hollywood. I wouldn’t go looking up on internet.
So if you want to be sure people know you are talking about real people/places it’s better you state it out loud somewhere. Then they will eventually make their own research.
In narrative terms, different names for the same thing reflect different points of view about that thing. Not necessarily differences of opinion or ideology, but cultural differences about who uses the name.
This is the case, for example, with the great myths in which characters (real, supposedly real or fictional) are called by different names. And myth is inseparable from History because it justifies its content. On that basis, I would say that the use of alternative names is highly relevant if it reflects the situation of those who use them.
And in absolute terms, as others have said before me, players are generally keen when they have the opportunity to learn something.
My initial thought would be to copy what others of a similar genre and vein of game have already done, so worst case, you are achieving parity. The ambitious side of me would try and sneak a Greek character, a Hittite character, and Egyptian transcriptions into the game and all have them refer to Ramses II as different things, but have it be clear to the player that they all mean the same person. (a la Gandalf / Mithrandir / Olorin)
Not exactly the same thing as what the OP describes with Ramses, but when I write fanfiction of foreign media where the official translation/localization changed most, if not all, of the names, I usually lean towards using original names except in cases where the English names are clearly restoring pronunciations/spellings incompatible with the source language(Japanese does not handle most European names well, and punny names based on English can be rendered unrecognizable once rendered with Japanese’s fairly limited phoneme set). As for series-specific terminology, how much I lean into leave it untranslated versus literal translation versus dub terminology is a bit more variable.
Notable exceptions to my preference for original names would be Pokemon and Digimon. For Pokemon, I use English names nearly exclusively for both Humans and mons due to not knowing most Japanese names by heart and the fact basically no one uses Japanese names when writing Pokemon fanfic unless they need a name for a non-canon relative, a last name, or a nickname distinct from a character’s real name… Digimon is more of a mixed bag as I’ll use Japanese names for most Human characters and a mix for the mons that have different names between regions.
Quick little video recommendation about translating Harry Potter (which has many wordplay names). Not exactly about “choose the right name for the right mood” but it is interesting to see where different translators go.
I suppose the interesting question in the first post would be “Which one of the names would be considered as the original one?” Even if you chose the Egyptian one, you would still have a few choices.
but it is interesting to see where different translators go.
Fun video! I watch Kdramas with my wife who is Korean and she will always point out what the actors are really saying as opposed to the subtitles. For example, a joke that occurred in a quick exchange, but wasn’t represented in the subs (He just switched to address her in the informal way of speaking). I can see how that would be near impossible to translate well. There’s always a challenge of conveying the meaning and intent without losing the artistry of the words themselves.
For Budacanta, I let my translators decide how to translate names - particularly of places, where different preferences exist about referring to places as the author did vs how local players know them. The ones in Cyrillic languages have apparently had the names done as literally as the script allows.
(I am fortunate in that I could tell my translators upfront that there would be no clever wordplay in the names. They were allowed to put in little bits of wordplay in their own language if it felt like a natural way to translate it, but I also told them not to overthink matters).
As for the Egyptian pharaoh, I say pick one and stick to it unless trying to make a point. If you do it with enough conviction, you can make any of those options work.
One of the few puns in Italian (appropriately lost in translation…) is “traduttore = traditore” (translator = traitor) and I think this synthesise nicely the issue debated here…
Just to complicate the issue further, here’s another example.
Using the native Hittite names:
“I don’t trust the Ahhiyawa. They’ve been biding their time, waiting for something. I think we need to expect an attack in the next few years.”
“You’re being paranoid. Wilusa controls the coast, and Prince Alaksandu is a loyal vassal. They’d have to overthrow him if they wanted to make any headway toward us. And those walls are never going to be breached.”
“You never know. A lot of Wilusa isn’t happy with him, and might prefer an Ahhiyawa ruler. Walls are useless if your own people open the gates.”
“But Appaliona protects Prince Alaksandu. Their own gods wouldn’t desert them.”
Using the more famous names:
“I don’t trust the Greeks. They’ve been biding their time, waiting for something. I think we need to expect an attack in the next few years.”
“You’re being paranoid. Troy controls the coast, and Prince Paris is a loyal vassal. They’d have to overthrow him if they wanted to make any headway toward us. And those walls are never going to be breached.”
“You never know. A lot of Troy isn’t happy with him, and might prefer a Greek ruler. Walls are useless if your own people open the gates.”
“But Apollo protects Prince Paris. Their own gods wouldn’t desert them.”
(Well, “native”. “Ahhiyawa” is probably a transcription into Hittite of Greek “Achaeans”/Ἀχαῖοι, and “Alaksandu” is definitely Greek “Alexander”/Ἀλεξάνδρος.)
The former definitely has more Hittite flavor, but the latter will be instantly recognizable to people who know the classics, and the former won’t be.
Taking these as an example, it would be a great reveal to tell a story from the perspective of a Hittite narrator (unknown to the reader), and then switch, even for a moment in an offhand comment by a Greek bystander, to a Greek perspective and let the player/reader know that “Yes, we’re talking about Ilium!”
For your Egyptian example, choose any unfamiliar name that suits your narrator’s or author’s perspective, and then let a side character refer to the Pharao in a familiar name.
Switching from Hittite to the names from the English translations of the Iliad I’m familiar with took that passage from might as well be pure fantasy to completely familiar context.
And admittedly, “Original names” is much easier when talking contemporary mass media in a major language compared to ancient texts written in languages that might be unintelligible to native readers of a modern descendant language, assuming there is a modern descendant, especially considering we have no samples of what any ancient spoken language sounded like.
On somewhat related notes, I’m annoyed by things like:
People pronouncing the s in Louis when talking about famous Frenchmen.
Jeanne D’Arc being referred to as Joan of Arc, and doubly so that this is all she was ever referred to by in my History classes back in highschool.
Since Harry Potter was brought up, people pronouncing the t in Voldemort(when I listened to the Audiobooks about a decade ago, it really grated when they started pronouncing the t about halfway through… not as cringe as the audiobooks using Sorceror’s Stone instead of Philosopher’s Stone though(I’m annoyed the powers that be thought it necessary to Translate the books from British English to American English to begin with, but changing the name of one of the most famous artifacts acrossall of European folklore/legend/mysticism/whatever you want to call it bugs the hell out of me and I’m glad the only time it ever comes up in Fanfic is as a joke poking fun at the English-to-English translation)).
And not an annoyance, but another for the Translation confusion pile, but in the anime Fate/Zero, It took over half of the series for me to learn that the servant Rider is supposed to be the embodiment of the legends surrounding Alexander the Great as Rider refers to himself as Iskander throughout the series, and it’s only when the human mage that summoned Rider does research on the historical Alexander the Great that I was able to make the connection.
Edit: Forgot to mention, but I’m also annoyed by how lousy English is with exonyms. It’s like English speakers never even try to call peoples by what they call themselves or places by the names the locals call them. And it’s been such a problem for so long that any attempt to replace exonyms with endonyms just makes it impossible for people to have any idea what you’re talking about.
Most will already know this classic story, but for those that don’t, please don’t spoil it. It’s worth the read if you have the patience, but you can always look it up and get the point. It’s very relevant to the discussion.
And some more complications, why not. These are all hypothetical examples, but hopefully not too farfetched of ones.
Using Mesopotamian units of measurement:
It’s a metal rod with a rusty star on the end, about one ammat long, but weighing less than ten shiqlu.
Using those units of measurement, but with the English names for them:
It’s a metal rod with a rusty star on the end, about one cubit long, but weighing less than ten shekels.
Using English units of measurement:
It’s a metal rod with a rusty star on the end, about two feet long, but weighing less than a hundred grams.
In this case, my instinct is to go with the middle one—it conveys a sense of setting without being completely meaningless to people, and the point is to play this game in English, not in Akkadian. But then again, I might be vastly overestimating how many people know the length of a cubit or the mass of a shekel off the top of their head.
(“Why the sudden interest in units of measurement?” I’m going through some very dull reference books for my thesis, and at the moment that means figuring out English equivalents to various Hittite measures. But then again, weighing puzzles are a classic of parser IF…)
