How to properly render "The Estate" when playing in German?

Question

As I'm preparing to run a The Strange campaign in German, I wonder how to translate "The Estate". There are a number of different possible meanings to the name. My initial guess was that it meant "estate" as in "a big mansion and surrounding land" ("Anwesen" or "Gutshof" in German). But then I discovered that "estate" could also mean "status" ("Stand") or even "wealth" ("Vermögen") and "inheritance" ("Nachlass").

Now I'm confused. Any insight from native speakers which of the meanings is the most likeliest intended? Or any German players who already have come up with a good translation?

Answer 1

In The Strange, The Estate is an organization that the PCs are in devoted to defending the Earth against recursions. Therefore the English meaning of Estate, as in "the press is the fourth estate," is one of the primary power groups of society. See Wikipedia Estates of the realm and wiktionary estate (3) (but since it's invested in keeping the status quo, there may be some implication of estate (1)).

Probably the best German translation is Macht, Gewalt, or Stand (see http://www.dict.cc/english-german/Fourth+Estate.html). Pick the connotation you like best, I'd probably go with der Stand for the "hold the line" connotation.

Answer 2

Try something like "The Foundation" if Estate doesn't translate too well: die Stiftung, how's that sound to German ears?

Answer 3

I'm not a native speaker of German, but I have been learning German all my life, including spending two years at college in Germany, so I think I have enough Sprachgefühl to understand the problem and intuit an answer.

"The Estate" as a group in The Strange is interested in two things (see for example http://www.montecookgames.com/earth-and-recursions/):

• exploring recursions
• keeping the earth safe from monsters who creep in from recursions

To my mind, this means that the meaning is closer to meaning 1. of "Estate" on Wikitionary, namely "(now rare, archaic) State; condition." The Estate is interested in understanding the state of recursions, and preserving the current (safe) state of Earth, of preserving the status quo. The fact this meaning is rare and archaic is part of what makes it a cool name for a clandestine organisation.

For the German rendering of this, my choice would be "Der Status" (or possibly just "Status" without the article). This has both the possible meanings of "die Lage, die Situation" (http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Status), and also hints at "Status quo" without unnecessarily evoking the rock band. Also to my non-native ears it has something of the mystery of the unusual use of "The Estate", being a Latin loanword. I suppose you could go with "die Lage", "die Situation", but they seem too bland to me.

A bonus of "Der Status" is also that, even if you think the meaning of "The Estate" is more about social status or organization (as per mxyzplk's answer), then Der Status also contains the meaning of ("Stand, Stellung in der Gesellschaft, innerhalb einer Gruppe" - Duden as above).

Answer 4

A single-word translation is probably not going to fly; there is little flair to a common noun used as proper noun in German. It is not something that often happens here. (We write all our nouns with capitals, after all.)

So I'd propose to use Gewalt as proposed by mxyzplk (it's the most commonly used; it's "Gewaltenteilung") but with a fitting adjective, for instance

• "Die Fünfte Gewalt",
• "Die Letzte Gewalt", or
• "Die Nte Gewalt" (alluding to recursions, if you have techies in your group).

Even so, I'd make that the inofficial moniker. "Stiftung" is probably a good one for the official name.

Answer 5

I would go for "Die Organisation" :)