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Originally Posted by hansl
...Streicher for Strider.
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We have a local dialect that sounds a lot like German. A German person can understand that dialect; I think it would sound to a German like South African sounds to a Dutchman: as a "weird" version of the language. (It's often disparaged and called "reserve-German" by people who don't understand it. Those same people normally also don't understand German.)
In this local Dialect, "Streicher" would mean a type of fireworks. (The Dutch word is
"strijker". It's ignited like a match, and after a few seconds it goes boom. If you're not fast enough in throwing it, it may actually kill you. Some are (were) as powerful as a small grenade
In Dutch, "The Shire" is translated as "De Gouw". I wonder how they came by that name.
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And also titles like "Master". "Herr Frodo" is an uncommon usage in German. If you talk to your master, you just call him "Herr" without a first name. But this is more like "Sir". A "Meister" is a craftsperson title in German, "Master" is an academic degree (in Worldish). So leave "Master" and add it to the glossary, making clear that it does not have an academic meaning here.
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In Dutch it's translated as "Meester", but as you say, this denotes a level of expertise in a profession or as an academic title (but one would use "Master" more often in that case), or a teacher in school.
It is also a very old Dutch version of "Mister", but nobody uses that anymore nowadays. One would now use "Mijnheer" (quite formal; Dutch version of "My Lord"), or the less formal version "Meneer" (Dutch version of "M'lord"; same sort of contraction).
So, while "Meester Frodo" is correct, it's old and out of fashion; "Mijnheer Frodo" or even "Meneer Frodo" would be better, at least nowadays.