IdiotWind said:
I defy anyone to find a copy of any of kafka's books with his christian name on the cover as "Frank" -if any do exist they are the result of a typo (as it is in the game) and are probably worth $$$ to a rare book dealer....
The guy's name will be remembered as how it appears on what history will remember him for: his writing. FRANZ Kafka
This argument doesn't contradict mine. There are no books with the name Virgil on them nor was he called that way in any historical documents. So if Virgilius is translated in English, then I do not find the above a good enough reason not to translate Franz Kafka.
Ray Patterson said:
Well, it's not really correct I think... names are only translated for people whose names are traditionally translated. Nobody calls the present king of Spain "John Charles", or France's president "James Chirac". So "Franz Kafka" is incorrect, or at least very unconventional, but it's not really another name.
This argument is a better one. But it is a bit hard to see where the lines are. Which names are usually translated and which aren't.
For instance, the game chose not to translate Jeanne d'Arc in english. It stays Jeanne d'Arc in english and that would support your argument that some names shouldn't be translated when the names are not traditionally translated. However in 1999 a film was made named: "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc". So that time, it was translated. And the game does translate Jeanne d'Arc in the italian version to Giovanna d'Arco and in the Spanish version to Juana de Arco.
The game is clearly not as consistent as I had hoped. It would be nice to consistently translate all the names or just leave all the names in the original language. You could also try to find if names are traditionally translated. However for some names (as shown with Jeanne d'Arc) it is not clear what is tradition.
Just to see if the translation from Franz Kafka to Frank Kafka was very unusual, I did a google search on Frank Kafka. There were 33000 hits. (Francis Kafka only got 402 hits, Frantisek Kafka got 883 hits) The original name Franz Kafka got over 3 million hits. So the translation is rare (about 1%) but not totally undone.
Personally I would like to see all the names in their original language. When Virgil was born the first time in a game of mine, I though that was pretty strange, but I got used to it. Since the game seems to have more strange translations, I would say fix all or fix none. No reason to fix some and leave other inconsistencies in place.
who told you that nonsense. I am German and I can assure you that Frank and Franz are 2 entirely different names. Else he would have used the name himself.
