Spain Cross

[Volksturmer]

Sorry, but I do not agree. Again, Dietrich's words. Succinctly explain precisely the words. Albert, "lucid", but not correct. John, logical is not necessarily true, and is not in this case"

So,
Brian- in this case, Lucid - clear - is not correct, and illogical is better?!

And what are you going to do with the Spanish speakers - from 1937 onwards - who call it the Cruz Española - Spanish Cross ? They don’t call it the Cruz España - Cross Spain. Are they wrong??? After all, the Legion Condor fought and died for them!!

German does not translate well into many languages, and vice versa!


John

[Brian S]

Whatever. Upset? Hardly.

[Albert]

If one reduces translation to looking up a word in the source language and matching it with its equivalent in the target language, then one gets Spain Cross. This is a correct translation. However, there is a lot more to translating. The reason why Dietrich and Brian's mother, and I say this with all due respect, have zero problems accepting Spain Cross as "proper" is their projecting of German linguistic reality into this name. For that very reason a lot of Americans have a problem accepting it. Of course there is more to it, and some I addressed in my post above.

To now claim that only Spain Cross is correct and acceptable is fractional and somewhat confrontational. Based on the posts above, it requires believing that the translator "zero" made a mistake... So, are we to assume that he was incompetent, unprofessional, or that something impaired his ability to correctly translate two simple words. And this remained unnoticed and uncorrected till 2020?... For my part, I do not "sink zo".

Look, why deal with automotive engineers and buyers, and other laymen, if this is important to you, then reach out to your closest university, and talk to the fine people at the German AND English Departments there, I am sure you would find some eager grad students, and a couple of professors to mentor them, to take on the task of shedding some light on this following the scientific method. Personally, I would be surprised if, taking everything into account, they all agreed that only Spain Cross is the proper translation. But anyway, then have them publish their findings as a small article in Dietrich's fine magazine. Win-win!

I am very serious about this and offer you my support. I will even work with those guys, I think my educational background would probably be helpful. Otherwise, potatoes/ potatos, and Spanish for me.

[Brian S]

Albert, the cross is not Spanish.

Think about that.

[Brian S]

This cross is Spanish

[Brian S]

This cross is for military action in Spain.

Hence, Spain Cross.

[Albert]

Albert, the cross is not Spanish.

Think about that.

Brian, you are assuming that I did not think about it. You are assuming that if I had thought about it, I would agree to Spain Cross as the ONLY solution. The thing is that I have thought about all that and beyond. I am agreeing with you that Spain Cross is the correct literal translation. Now you need to open your mind to the reality of translating and what goes into that.

The root cause for you thinking that only Spain is correct seems to be that you only allow a true adjective to function as an adjective and you are ignoring what I wrote in my first post in this thread. Why? English, and German, use nouns as de facto adjectives, and while in one language one thing might be "logical" in another language that might not be the case.

Again, if this is important to you, then reach out to some hungry grad students, hungry for the opportunity to get published and maybe a lunch, and I will support you working with them.

I am writing all this in good humor and out of "professional" interest. I value you greatly as a SC expert, but politely and peacefully disagree with you on this translation issue;-)

[Brian S]

Sorry Albert but I believe there is only one translation.

At best this is a colloquialism.

The cross was awarded by Germany not Spain. If awarded by Spain it would be Spanish.

But it was not.

You have thought about it and that works for you. Fine. I chose to be correct not colloquial.

[Albert]

A hypothetical question then, where should this be going? Revisionism of German award names? Here is one that is clearly incorrectly translated:

Verwundetenabzeichen -> Wound Badge (sounds fine in EN) -> Wundenabzeichen (would sound perfectly fine to someone's American GE speaking relative, but sounds horrible in GE)

So perhaps the translation is not too bad after all? Because in the German "logic" it is awarded to the wounded, and in English it is for receiving "wounds".

A good translation will always be grounded in socio- and psycho-linguistics. And one needs to understand and accept that good translators will look for the best fitting and not the most direct translation. Therefore, sometimes there will be more than one correct option. Anyways, I do not intend to hijack this thread.

[Brian S]

Was it revisionist to say the world is not flat?

Would it be a socio-comfortable correctness? Or...

It be incorrect?

Your wound analogy I do not think close to this...

Unless English called it “woundish” badge.

[Thomas Durante]

I think technically the translation is correct as "Spain Cross" as Brian says. However it certainly rolls off the tongue more easily as Spanish Cross and agree with those that say both can be used interchangably, especially since the water is muddy when you are talking about multiple Spanish Crosses.

As far as literal translation goes, Knights Cross should technically be Knight's Cross. Dietrich, I remember you discussing why you chose to go with Knights Cross for your book, can you post that again as I think it is pertinent to this discussion. You are certainly the authority here as you have mastery of both the English and German language.

Tom

[Albert]

I think technically the translation is correct as "Spain Cross" as Brian says.

As I say too, repeatedly, see above;-)

Brian, your response sounds a little desperate....

But here is another flat earth one. You mentioned colloquialisms, German collectors, call, or used to call more often in the past, the 1st type wound badge the "spanisches VW". As an analogy to the SC, they should've called it the "Spanien VW". Notice something? Is it closer now?

[Albert]

...
As far as literal translation goes, Knights Cross should technically be Knight's Cross. Dietrich, I remember you discussing why you chose to go with Knights Cross for your book, can you post that again as I think it is pertinent to this discussion. You are certainly the authority here as you have mastery of both the English and German language.

Tom

Tom,

To use your term "technically", both translations, Knights Cross and Knight's Cross can be seen as incorrect. The former being plural, which grammatically would be correct in German, semantically rather no as the award was awarded to one Ritter (sing.), and not a group of Ritter (pl.). The latter is possessive case which in German would be "des Ritters", necessitating a change of word order, whereas the former could be a compound noun.

Since the award in English is know with an "s" at the end of Knight, you can either pick one of the two incorrect translations, or do what Brian is doing, and try reeducate everyone to say The Knight Cross. If you accept the "s", which I would do just as I accept "Spanish", then you have to decide what is the lesser evil to you. And here, I too, am curious to hear from Dietrich how he made his, acceptable, decision.

[Stan]

Over the years collectors have used the designations "Guerilla Warfare badge" and "Anti-Partisan Badge" to describe a Bandenkampfabzeichen. There has never been a problem and no moderator has thought fit to edit the title to APB or BKA.

Now, when a new collector writes a thread entitled "Spanish Cross" the title is changed to "Spain Cross" and BrianS chastises the poor lad for his using an incorrect translation.

All I am asking for is freedom of speech. Let us agree that both terms Spanish Cross and Spain Cross are acceptable on this forum and get on with our collecting.

Stan

[Dietrich Maerz]

As far as literal translation goes, Knights Cross should technically be Knight's Cross. Dietrich, I remember you discussing why you chose to go with Knights Cross for your book, can you post that again as I think it is pertinent to this discussion. You are certainly the authority here as you have mastery of both the English and German language. Tom

Oh yes, that was this terrible discussion with Lumsden, the guy who wrote in his book "Detecting the Fakes" that the ring of a Knights Cross must be soldered on. If it is part of the frame it is a fake. And other absurdities!

The problem with Knight's Cross and Knights Cross comes from the fact that singular and plural of knight in the German language is the same, i.e. Ritter. So a Ritterkreuz (by the way, nobody would translate this as Knightly Cross, as it is done with the Spain Cross ...). Ritterkreuz is either a cross for one Ritter or for several Ritter, it is unclear in the German language. Since the Order of the Knights Cross was awarded to more than one and was created as a group of knights (just as the Knights of the Round Table), as an elite group of soldiers and not just for one knight, I decided on my own to use Knights Cross in my book based and also after talking to some native English speakers, explaining the reasoning. Fortunately, that was the only thing Lumsden found to be wrong in my book. After long discussions he settled - as an alternative and believing in the plural - for possibly Knights' Cross (or was it Knights's Cross?)

I am very happy that as of today this topic of Knight's Cross or Knights Cross is the only other controversy found so far in my book, apart from some post-war S&L being early originals, of course!

It is a basic problem of translations. One needs to have a fairly deep understanding of both languages, including some underlying meanings of words in context, to come up with a "correct" translation. In some cases even a background in history. For me a correct translation in a non-fiction book is a translation that reflects the meaning of the original language, and not just the grammatical correctness of the translation as a first determination. Or even the sound of it. Or something like" It was always like that and that is why it should be so forever!"
If one believes that, it is a Spain Cross and it is a Knights Cross, not a Spanish Cross (and if Spanish Cross is accepted, then please use also Knightly Cross, same thing!)

Another test would be to translate back from the chosen translation into the original language. With Spanish Cross one would end up with "Spanisches Kreuz" (and never ever with Spanien Kreuz) and with Knights Cross and Knight's Cross you would in both cases end up with "Ritterkreuz."

Far more important (for me) is to use the correct spelling of terms of the German language. Why? Because that is how you will find it in a book, in an index, in a search. You will not find Liebstandarte, there was no Adolph Hitler, no Kreigsmarine, no Shinkle.

To the people who think this type of discussion is not worth the time and we should rather move on to another "Is this real?" or "Look what I bought"-thread, my personal answer is this: this type of thread (and there are many to find in all sub-fora) is what distinguishes WAF from most of other fora. It is "something else", it is refreshing, it is intellectually stimulating, and - best of all - nobody needs to read it if it is deemed nonsense or whatever.