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Khedrac
2023-03-23, 03:46 AM
My brother is translating a series of books from German into English and he has sent me the following question:

Greetings!
A little problem has come up in my translation: a term for a castle.
In German, it is a Trutzburg. Die Burg is a common term for a castle (in the sense fortress - in the sense palace it is a Schloss). But Trutz is a very unusual term. Dictionaries tell me it is a variant of Trotz, which as a preposition means "despite"; as a noun it means "defiance". The form Trutz is almost entirely confined to the phrase Trutz und Schutz, which means "offence and defence" - Trutz being the offensive part and Schutz (protection) the defensive.
So what we seem to have here is an offensive, as opposed to a defensive, castle. So what is a good word to use for such a castle? Invasive? Presumably such castles were erected by the invaders who were conquering a region.
Anyway, I think you know more about castles than I do, so what is your view on this?
Many thanks,
Now, other than knowing that a lot of castles were offensive in purpose, used to do things like corral rebels into smaller areas (not giving examples to avoid RL politics) I have no good ideas as to the best way to make this distinction in English (UK English if it matters).

Does anyone have any good suggestions?

The best I can do is suggest that to me "Fortress" sounds more offensive than "Castle", as this is a specific castle (I think) we probably need a two-word name for it.

Lacco
2023-03-23, 04:29 AM
My very basic knowledge of German will be useless, but my country took a lot of words from the language, so there is some crossover.

I'd say the difference is similar to 'security' and 'safety' - two very different terms if you work in the safety or security field.

In this case, the Schutz could mean 'protection' within the area (security and protection against bandits, other lords, etc.); the Trutz would mean resisting outside enemies (there are some lines of of castles that serve as protection on borders.

My 2 cents.

I'd also suggest asking around in the Real Weapons & etc. thread: there are people that deal with stuff like this on daily basis.

Satinavian
2023-03-23, 05:11 AM
"Trutz" does not mean offense at all.

"defience" is a pretty good translation. In "Trutz und Schutz", the Trutz is the offensive part because it is about defying the enemy and thus outward faced where Schutz mean protecting their own and thus inward faced. The phrase was later used in reference to general military alliances, but that does not chance the meaning of Trutz to offense.

A Trutzburg is just a particularly sturdy castle, often somewhere near an enemy suspected of planning an invasion. But the usage is not really much distinct from Burg, it is just putting some extra emphasis to it.

Fortress however is "Festung". nd the differences between Festung and Burg are pretty much the same as between castle and fortress.

Korahir
2023-03-23, 05:40 AM
"Trutz" does not mean offense at all.

"defience" is a pretty good translation. In "Trutz und Schutz", the Trutz is the offensive part because it is about defying the enemy and thus outward faced where Schutz mean protecting their own and thus inward faced. The phrase was later used in reference to general military alliances, but that does not chance the meaning of Trutz to offense.

A Trutzburg is just a particularly sturdy castle, often somewhere near an enemy suspected of planning an invasion. But the usage is not really much distinct from Burg, it is just putting some extra emphasis to it.

Fortress however is "Festung". nd the differences between Festung and Burg are pretty much the same as between castle and fortress.

As a native German speaker I agree. "Trutz" is middle high german for "Trotz" which translates to defiance. Terms that may have some ring to it in English could be counter castle ("Gegenburg"), siege castle ("Belagerungsburg") or border fortress ("Grenzburg").

Eldan
2023-03-23, 05:42 AM
Alright!
*knucklecrack*

No, Trutz does not mean offence. I can't think of a context where it would. I would translate it as "resistance".

Now, for the specific term Trutzburg. This has both a more metaphorical, colloquial meaning and a more technical one. Generally, a Trutzburg is just a "resistant castle". If a castle resisted a siege, you could colloquially call it a "Trutzburg".

More technically or scientifically, a Trutzburg can also be what is often called a "Gegenburg" or "Belagerungsburg", i.e. a "counter castle" or a "siege castle".
This is specifically a castle that was as part of a siege: you go to a neighboring hill and build your own fortification there, to protect your besieging troops and possibly your siege engines (a siege, after all, could take years).

Wikipedia has this nice example: Burg Eltz on the left, Burg Trutzeltz on the right.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Burg_Eltz_und_Burg_Trutzeltz.jpg

It can also mean what's also more precisely called an Okkupationsburg, an occupation castle. That can mean a castle either built directly on the border, to try to control some enemy land, or a castle built in recently occupied and conquered territory. Crusader castles in the holy land are often given as the example for that one.

So, your brother's translation depends on definition. Whether this is a technical/scientific text he's translating and what kind of castle it is. It could just be an especially tough castle to siege, it could be one built to siege or it could be one to occupy conquered land.

Khedrac
2023-03-23, 07:40 AM
Thank-you all.

:smile: :cool: :smile:

My brother's actually translating a series of children's novels so he may not be able to tell from context (though he can ask the author).
I remember he hit another tricky word to translate on an earlier book so I will see if I can dig it up and see if you excellent folks can do better on that one too.
(His German should be pretty good for an Englishman's, but seeing as he had to hit the dictionary for this one I am not surprised you could do better.)

Now the question is what to put in English where, to my knowledge, we don't really have different terms for different castles by function, just by design, hmm. <insert puzzled emoji here>

Korahir
2023-03-28, 05:55 AM
Thank-you all.

:smile: :cool: :smile:

My brother's actually translating a series of children's novels so he may not be able to tell from context (though he can ask the author).
I remember he hit another tricky word to translate on an earlier book so I will see if I can dig it up and see if you excellent folks can do better on that one too.
(His German should be pretty good for an Englishman's, but seeing as he had to hit the dictionary for this one I am not surprised you could do better.)

Now the question is what to put in English where, to my knowledge, we don't really have different terms for different castles by function, just by design, hmm. <insert puzzled emoji here>

AFAIC: German is a beautiful language with a lot of words but we don't use terms like "Gegenburg" either. Everyday language contains only the words "Burg" and "Schloss" which English can translate easily: Bastion, Fortress, Castle for "Burg" and Palace or Castle for "Schloss". I wouldn't sweat over nuances like Trutzburg. I am pretty sure less than 5% of German speakers would know what a Trutzburg is.

Khedrac
2023-03-28, 09:49 AM
AFAIC: German is a beautiful language with a lot of words but we don't use terms like "Gegenburg" either. Everyday language contains only the words "Burg" and "Schloss" which English can translate easily: Bastion, Fortress, Castle for "Burg" and Palace or Castle for "Schloss". I wouldn't sweat over nuances like Trutzburg. I am pretty sure less than 5% of German speakers would know what a Trutzburg is.

It wasn't so much the nuances, but what would make a good English term for the story (he's translating a series of fantasy stories). Seeing as the Trutzberg is both in an isolated area and one of a fairly well hidden chain of them, we decided on "Stronghold" fitting the story better than other terms. I won't say more because they haven't been published in English yet and he is hoping that the author's agent will land an English-language deal for them at some point (yes, he has the author's approval - it probably helped that he approached the author after translating the first novel for his own entertainment so instead of the usual "I want to translate your books" he was able to open with "here is my translation of your first book").

Satinavian
2023-03-28, 10:08 AM
Stronghold sounds good.
Chain of castles in an isolated area sounds more like border fortifications and pretty much rules out the Gegenburg/Belagerungsburg meanings.

Good luck with getting the approval.

Eldan
2023-03-29, 05:30 AM
AFAIC: German is a beautiful language with a lot of words but we don't use terms like "Gegenburg" either. Everyday language contains only the words "Burg" and "Schloss" which English can translate easily: Bastion, Fortress, Castle for "Burg" and Palace or Castle for "Schloss". I wouldn't sweat over nuances like Trutzburg. I am pretty sure less than 5% of German speakers would know what a Trutzburg is.

To be fair, the original post just said "books", so when we were asked about a fairly specific term, I assumed this was at least something like a pop science book about the middle ages. For a children's book, Burg or Schloss would indeed be absolutely fine for almost any context.

Khedrac
2023-03-29, 06:10 AM
To be fair, the original post just said "books", so when we were asked about a fairly specific term, I assumed this was at least something like a pop science book about the middle ages. For a children's book, Burg or Schloss would indeed be absolutely fine for almost any context.

And your original reply was really informative and did help us decide what word to use. Assuming the original author knows his castles, my brother thinks that an "occupation castle" might well be what he meant (even if there is no-one there now), so thank-you again for all the assistance. Even if the book can get away with using terms loosely, it really helps to know what they should mean when deciding what to use.

Batcathat
2023-03-29, 12:04 PM
I've sometimes been annoyed by the seeming lack of an English translation for the Swedish "borg" (as you can probably guess, it's our equivalent of "burg") if I want to differentiate it from castle. I've never considered stronghold, but I suppose that's pretty good, if not perfect. I'll keep it in mind for the next time I'm about to be annoyed about this particular issue. :smallsmile:

Beleriphon
2023-04-16, 03:34 PM
I've sometimes been annoyed by the seeming lack of an English translation for the Swedish "borg" (as you can probably guess, it's our equivalent of "burg") if I want to differentiate it from castle. I've never considered stronghold, but I suppose that's pretty good, if not perfect. I'll keep it in mind for the next time I'm about to be annoyed about this particular issue. :smallsmile:

It really, really depends. Castle in English has fairly specific meaning from a technical stand point: a fortified keep surrounded by a wall, that is also residence. For example: Leeds Castle, Himeji Castle, Alcázar of Segovia, The Tower of London, and Baba Vida.

English words like fort and fortress tend to reinforce the exclusive military aspect of the site, which can be helpful to differentiate between locations. Think of the term Fortress Europe during the Second World War.

A stronghold could be a castle, a fort, a particularly sturdy house, a South American drug lord's home town, or narrow box canyon. It's broad enough you could apply to just about any structure or geographic feature.

For sheer amusement's sake English also uses burg as a word. Usually to refer to a city, but I suspect that's more a cognate with Anglo-Saxon burh meaning a fortified town, and the fact that a ton of places in the US ended up being named Something-burg.

Pauly
2023-04-18, 09:09 PM
It really, really depends. Castle in English has fairly specific meaning from a technical stand point: a fortified keep surrounded by a wall, that is also residence. For example: Leeds Castle, Himeji Castle, Alcázar of Segovia, The Tower of London, and Baba Vida.

English words like fort and fortress tend to reinforce the exclusive military aspect of the site, which can be helpful to differentiate between locations. Think of the term Fortress Europe during the Second World War.

A stronghold could be a castle, a fort, a particularly sturdy house, a South American drug lord's home town, or narrow box canyon. It's broad enough you could apply to just about any structure or geographic feature.

For sheer amusement's sake English also uses burg as a word. Usually to refer to a city, but I suspect that's more a cognate with Anglo-Saxon burh meaning a fortified town, and the fact that a ton of places in the US ended up being named Something-burg.

On stronghold. The suffix “-hold” can refer to a fortified place or place of refuge. It can also refer to something you watch over, possess or control in words such as household or farmhold. So stronghold is a fortified [or at least defensible] place that you control, it also carries strong implications of residence.

I would use stronghold to describe a place where someone lives that can be easily defended. It can also be the place you go to to seek refuge in times of danger if it isn’t your primary residence.

snowblizz
2023-04-19, 01:54 PM
My brother is translating a series of books from German into English and he has sent me the following question:

Now, other than knowing that a lot of castles were offensive in purpose, used to do things like corral rebels into smaller areas (not giving examples to avoid RL politics) I have no good ideas as to the best way to make this distinction in English (UK English if it matters).

Does anyone have any good suggestions?

The best I can do is suggest that to me "Fortress" sounds more offensive than "Castle", as this is a specific castle (I think) we probably need a two-word name for it.

"Counter-castle" is the term used in wikipedia for the phenomenon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-castle

The Trutzburg is built as a counter to a specific castle. Like Trutzeltz to Eltz castle. Usually as part of rivalry or a siege. The Trutzeltz is shoddy quality e.g..