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[Narushima]

I have a certain passion for languages in general, and I know this board is full of non-English-speaking people (or at least I hope so), so I wanted to know how does the word "dwarf" translates in all the tongues present here. In french we don't have a particular word for a fantasy dwarf, so it's just the same as "midget" in English.

French : "nain"
Spanish : "Enano"
Italian : "Nano"
German : "Zwerg"
Arabic : "qāf - zāy - wāw"
Romanian : "Pitic"
Swedish : "dvärg"
Brazilian Portuguese : "Anão"
Russian : "karlik"
Dutch : "Dwerg"
Hungarian: "Törp"
Croatian: "Patuljak"
Korean : 난쟁이 (pronounced nan-jaeng-ee)
Estonian : "Päkapikk
Danish : "Dværg"
Norwegian : "Dverg" or "Nisse"
Finnish : "Kääpiö"
Polish: "krasnolud"
Slovenian: "Škrat"
Russian: "карлик (karlik)"

No babelfish (or others) translation please.

[ June 07, 2008: Message edited by: Narushima ]

[ June 12, 2008: Message edited by: Narushima ]

[Krash]

In swedish it's dvärg (pronounced dvairj)

[Nite/m4re]

In brazilian portuguese its "Anão"  

[Zaloran]

In spanish its "Enano"

[Danaru]

In english it's "Dwarf"

I'm helping!

[Torak]

In Political, it's Little People.

[Misterstone]

In Mandarin the common word is:

矮人  Ai3 ren2.  That word means midget/little person in Mandarin, and it is also how the Chinese Wikipedia translates the "dwarf" race in things such as LoTR and WoW and so on.

There also seems to have been a race (!?) of really short people/midgets back in the Han Dynasty called the 侏儒 (Zhu1 ru2 in modern-day Mandarin).  According to an early official history, several worked as horse grooms in the imperial palace.  I don't think scholars really know if they were a minority ethnic group that was shorter than the Han dynasty Chinese, or if maybe this was just what people called the dwarfs who worked as horse grooms in the imperial palace.  And for that matter, why would dwarfs make good horse grooms?  Because they can't actually ride the horses away and steal them?

[Narushima]

Sorry but I can't add support for Chinese right now, I can't add it to the list for the moment.

[Kagus]

Norwegian "Dverg", pronounced like it's written.

However, the term "nisse" (NIS-seh) would more commonly be used.  It's sort of a gnome, or some other small thingy.  Santa Clause is "Julenissen", or "the Yule Gnome".

[Kennel]

Finnish: Kääpiö

My ethymology book says (rough translation):
"Probably from word "kääppä" which means hill or mound. Tonttu or "maahinen" (kind a gnome) that has lived in one has been called "kääpiö". Kääppä might be taken from baltic languages"

[nagual678]

italian : nano

[McDoomhammer]

I was going to suggest that the french comes from "nano", the latin.  The italian would seem to confirm that.  Apparently the English language gets the word from the viking settlers.

[Sunday]

I'm not sure about the romanization, but in arabic one dwarf is 'coff', 'zain' 'miim.'

Pronounced similar to 'qazim'.  Plural 'Aqzaam'.  Feminine 'qazima'; feminine plural 'qazimaat.'

[Istrian]

Russian : karlik

[Deon]

yeah, it's "karlik" in the translation but more "gnome" in the meaning.
Russians have these terms totally messed. I.e. Tolkien's dwarves were originally translated and "gnomes" and Snowhite's gnomes were translated as "gnomes" too. These cratures were considered the same.
But then DnD came to our country in massive way... And we got lost. Dwarfs and gnomes. Errr Gnomes and gnomes? =)

For now to stop the confusion usually gamers/roleplayers use transcription words (I mean call them the way they are in english - dwarf = [dvo:rf] and gnome = [gnom]).

I don't like the "karlik" word for fantasy dwarves, it means just a short man or more commonly "midget". F&&& this, my dwarves are NOT midgets.

[ June 05, 2008: Message edited by: Deon ]