Hunchman801 wrote: Wed Feb 23, 2022 12:58 pm
Sounds awesome! Hopefully each character and level will have at least one name that makes sense.
OK, I'm going to kick it off. Let's start with the levels. Below are the names of all the levels in the game, and the two variants for each (left one if from Uncle Risech, right one is from Russian Project). They are split into two because I couldn't find a way to have more lines under the "code" tag without a forced scrollbar.
Code: Select all
The Woods of Light Лес Огней Леса Света
The Fairy Glade Чудо Поляна Поляна Фей
The Marshes of Awakening Болото Пробуждения Болота Просыающихся
The Bayou Болото Бэйо
The Walk of Life Тропа Жизни Прогулка Жизни
The Sanctuary of Water and Ice Храм Воды и Льда Святыня Воды и Льда
The Menhir Hills Холмы Холмы Статуи
The Cave of Bad Dreams Пещера Плохих Снов Пещера Дурных Снов
The Canopy Балдахин Ковер
Whale Bay Бухта Кита Китовая Отмель
The Sanctuary of Stone and Fire Храм Камня и Огня Святыня Камня и Огня
Code: Select all
The Echoing Caves Пещеры Эхо Пещеры Эха
The Precipice Пропасть Сталактит
The Top of the World Вершина Мира Вершина Мира
The Sanctuary of Rock and Lava Храм Камня и Лавы Святыня Скал и Лавы
The Walk of Power Тропа Силы Прогулка Мощи
Beneath the Sanctuary of Rock and Lava Под Храмом Камня и Лавы Под Святыней Скал и Лавы
Tomb of the Ancients Могила Предков Могила Древних
The Iron Mountains Железные Горы Железные Горы
The Prison Ship Корабль-Тюрьма Тюремный Корабль
The Crow's Nest Гнездо Вороны Гнездо Вороны
The Hall of Doors Зал Ворот Холл Дверей
What follows is my initial recommendations. I encourage everyone to weigh in.
The fairly straightforward ones:
- The Echoing Caves, The Top of the World, The Iron Mountains - nothing to discuss really - in all three cases, the translation is the same (except what looks to be a typo/conjugation error in the case of Эхо vs Эха. There is also nothing wrong with any of the translations.
- The Woods of Light - I prefer Леса Света because "cвет" means "light" whereas "огни" means "lights" - not quite the same thing. "Woods" can be translated both in singular and in plural, I believe.
- The Fairy Glade - I prefer Поляна Фей which is an accurate translation, whereas the other option is like "The Wondrous Glade" or "The Glade of Wonders" - I see no reason to deviate from the original.
- The Marshes of Awakening - I prefer Болото Пробуждения because "пробуждение" is the act of awakening while the other word refers to those waking up (never mind the typo that Russian speakers will notice). Translation of "marsh" vs "marshes" in plural is secondary in this case, in my opinion.
- The Cave of Bad Dreams - both translations are very close. I prefer Пещера Дурных Снов actually, because although "плохие" is a direct translation of "bad" in a general sense, specifically in the context of dreams, "дурные сны" is a closer description of nightmares, which better captures the atmosphere of the cave (i.e., these are not "bad dreams about being late to work").
- Whale Bay - Бухта Кита is self-explanatory. The other one is plain wrong, because "отмель" means sandbar / bank, not "bay".
- The Precipice - Пропасть is self-explanatory. Not sure who or why decided to translate it as "stalactite".
- Tomb of the Ancients - I prefer Могила Древних, since "Могила Предков" would be more "Tomb of the Ancestors". Close, but not the same.
The Sanctuaries:
The first decision here is whether to use
Святыня or
Храм. The former means "shrine", the latter means "temple". So, both are close but not 100% accurate translations of "sanctuary", which I am told is supposed to be "святилище". So in this case, I would prefer "святыня", but only slightly. However, I like it much more that the Russian Project translation uses "Скал и Лавы" and not "Камня и Лавы", similarly to how the English variant does not reuse the word "Stone", but instead says "
Rock and Lava". So, my recommendation is to use the "Russian Project" translation in all three cases.
The Bonus Levels:
Here,
Прогулка means "Walk", while
Тропа means "Path", which is less true to the English version (although the French version used different words for both levels - Promenade and Tour, go figure). For the
Walk of Power I would prefer "сила" (which is power/strength) and not "мощь" (which is power/might), but that is a very small point. Again, my recommendation is to use the "Russian Project" translation.
The difficult ones, where I feel that neither translation is fully adequate:
- The Crow's Nest - seems trivial at first glance, with both versions agreeing on Гнездо Вороны, which also seems to be correct. Except, the actual accepted maritime term in Russian is "Воронье Гнездо", which is what I would use. However, from looking at other languages on the wiki, it seems they also don't use the accepted maritime name for the construction, so perhaps Гнездо Вороны is fine?
- The Bayou - It's not a common word and obviously the translators struggled with it. The first one translated it simply as "Болото" (swamp/marsh), which is a bit off, since it is not really a swamp (although similar), and also since a similar word is used for the previous level. The German translation seems to do this, though, so I guess it may be OK? The other version - "Бэйо" is not an accepted word in Russian - the accepted direct translation is "Байу" - which is what I would have preferred, but alas, no version uses it. If I have to choose one of the two - it will have to be Болото, despite not being fully comfortable with it.
- The Menhir Hills - similar situation to "The Bayou". One translation is simply "Холмы" (Hills) and the oter is "Холмы Статуи" (Hills of the Statue). Although it may be a typo and the и should have been й, which would make it "Hills of Statues" - that at least makes some sense. Pity they didn't know 22-23 years ago that "menhir" has an accepted translation to Russian as "менгир". It really should have been "Холмы Менгиров".
- The Canopy - here, "Ковер" (carpet) is way off. "Балдахин" is what you would see as the first meaning in many dictionaries, but alas it refers to "canopy of state", whereas in the game the correct meaning should be the biological one, which in Russian would be translated as "Полог". This is probably the hardest one to pick, as both options are bad.
Finally, there is the
Hall of Doors itself.
Зал Ворот and
Холл Дверей are both acceptable. Зал is a common Russian translation of Hall, but the direct transliteration Холл is also commonly accepted. While Ворота means Gate and not Door, it is close enough.
In fact, the Russian page on the wiki used to be called "Зал Ворот", until I changed it to "Зал Дверей" for consistency with the word Door.
However, now I see that I don't actually have an official reference to how "Spiral Doors" are called in Russian. I don't think there are named directly in the game; the wiki source refers to the manual, and I do not know of any comprehensive Russian translation of the Rayman 2 manual. If someone has a source, please share.
Indeed, when Murfy introduces the Doors during the first visit to the Hall, both translations refer to them as "Дверь", which makes "Зал Ворот" a bit inconsistent. So I say either use
Холл Дверей or leave it the way it currently is.
Guess, we have a long way to go, but it's a start.
