Translations of The Lord of The Rings - German Translation (Carroux)

German Translation (Carroux)

For Shire, Tolkien endorses the Gouw of the Dutch version and remarks that German Gau "seems to me suitable in Ger., unless its recent use in regional reorganization under Hitler has spoilt this very old word."

The German translator, Margaret Carroux, decided that this was indeed the case, and opted for the more artificial Auenland "meadow-land" instead.

Rivendell Tolkien considered as a particularly difficult case, and recommends to "translate by sense, or retain as seems best." Carroux (1972) opted for literal translation, Bruchtal.

Another difficult case is the name of Shelob, formed from the pronoun she plus lob, a dialectal word for "spider" (according to Tolkien; the OED is only aware of its occurrence in Middle English). Tolkien gives no prescription; he merely notes that "The Dutch version retains Shelob, but the Swed. has the rather feeble Honmonstret ." Carroux chose Kankra, an artificial feminine formation from dialectal German Kanker "Opiliones" (cognate to cancer).

The name "Baggins" was rendered as Beutlin (containing the word Beutel meaning "bag"), and "Elf" was rendered as Elb, the plural Elves as Elben. The choice reflects Tolkien's suggestion:

With regard to German: I would suggest with diffidence that Elf, elfen, are perhaps to be avoided as equivalents of Elf, elven. Elf is, I believe, borrowed from English, and may retain some of the associations of a kind that I should particularly desire not to be present (if possible): e.g. those of Drayton or of A Midsummer Night's Dream I wonder whether the word Alp (or better still the form Alb, still given in modern dictionaries as a variant, which is historically the more normal form) could not be used. It is the true cognate of English elf The Elves of the 'mythology' of The L.R. are not actually equatable with the folklore traditions about 'fairies', and as I have said (Appendix F) I should prefer the oldest available form of the name to be used, and leave it to acquire its own associations for readers of my tale.

The Elb chosen by Carroux instead of the suggested Alb is a construction by Jacob Grimm in his 1835 Teutonic Mythology. Grimm, like Tolkien, notes that German Elf is a loan from the English, and argues for the revival of the original German cognate, which survived in the adjective elbisch and in composed names like Elbegast. Grimm also notes that the correct plural of Elb would be Elbe, but Carroux does not follow in this and uses the plural Elben, denounced by Grimm as incorrect in his German Dictionary (s.v. Alb).