German Help for Wee Hob

[hobgoblinn]

Friends, The following is a dictated message from Wee Hob. I told him I have some LJ friends who speak German.

***
Oh Dear God. Are you actually going to write that? *Heavy sigh.* I guess you weren't kidding when you said the mike was on. Okay here we go. I have a German project that I was given by my German teacher. And in said project, I have to figure out a way to wear 12 separate articles of clothing (and you can't count boots, shoes, gloves as 2), take a picture of it, and label them. So that's all very well; I'm able to do that. Here's where the problem comes in: the labeling. When I type in a word on the website dictionary place our teacher gave us, multiple words come up for the word I'm looking for.

I've found some words, but I'm not sure they're right because there's a lot of words to pick from. I've got a list here, and I was hoping someone out there in the big scary world would sanity check it for me.

*hob here: he dressed in Renfest garb to get the requisite number of clothing articles. He doesn't normally wear swords and the like.*

Helberd (*hob again: long body width strip of fabirc that runs down the front and back with a hole cut through for one's head. Also used in religious habits. Scapula maybe? He swears this is the word his SCA member godparents use for it.*)

der Dolchstab
die Hellebarde
der Stabdolch


Sheath

which spat me a whopping 16 different words. Don't worry, people, I'm not giving you all of them. I just kinda need to know which one it is.

I found sheath knife, which is das Fahrtenmesser. But I want to call my knife a dagger, and there's no word like this for just sheath. Some other guesses:

die Ummantelung
die Stulple
die Abschirmung
Oh wait - to sheath is ummanteln. Might be that one then.


Cloak

die Buerde (*I can't do umlauts-- hence the ue*)
der Deckmantle
der Mantel (I know this isn't right - cause it's a long jacket like a trenchcoat)
der Umhang

Thanks for bearing with me. Danke, Aufwiedersehen.

**
Well, I did promise to post more. I'll try to put up a picture in a separate post. He does looks quite dashing.

hob

Comments

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

I wish I could help you here, and I could if it it was normal clothing, but the truth is that I have no effin' clue. (Though if I recall from my reading, I don't think that der Mantel is as wrong for "cloak" as you assume; now it means a long coat, but these words all came from somewhere, so once upon a time it may well have meant cloak).

[veradee.livejournal.com]

While German is my mother language, I'm pretty clueless when it comes to Renaissance clothing. It might help to see pictures of the clothes.

Depending on what the cloak actually looks like, it might be Mantel or Umhang. Both can be worn.

Of the three translations you mention for sheath, only a Stulpe is a kind of clothing. It's worn around the lower arm as some kind of protection - against the cold or also in battle.

As for that weapon, I would imagine that Hellebarde is correct. It's not excatly something one still comes across nowadays.

[juno-magic.livejournal.com]

German native speaker and historian with something of an emphasis on the Middle Ages, so I'll do my best to help out. First, a trick: Wikipedia. You get very many items explained in German and in English. This is often better than a dictionary because there are pictures and real explanations.

Now, your lists.

Halberd or in German "die Hellebarde" ... that's NOT fabric! That's a weapon! See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halberd or http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellebarde

Stabdolch or Dolchstab (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolchstab) part of a halberd, again, part of a weapon, and not clothing. Both uncommon.

Dagger is "der Dolch" in German.

The sheath of a dagger is "die Scheide" or "die Dolchscheide" in German.

"Fahrtenmesser" is a special kind of knife (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrtenmesser). It's the kind of knife you take when you're on hiking trips of several days in the Alps or somewhere, what I'd expect scouts to carry. And what was historically used by the Hitler-Youth.

"Die Ummantelung" would be something related to buildings. Like oh, the kind of wall design around a fireplace. Not clothing. Not a sheath for weapons.

"Die Stulpe" is an old-fashioned expression for either protective sleeves or leg warmers. You might carry a little knife hidden there, but it's NOT a sheath, nor a technical term for anything like that.

"Die Abschirmung" could be a lot of things ... a protective barrier against radiation, keeping a celebrity out of sight, or countermeasures against listening devices by the secret service. Not clothing. Nothing directly related to hand weapons.

"Die Bürde" ... means a heavy load metaphorically or physically. It has nothing to do with clothing or weapons in modern German. Even in the historical dictionary of the Grimm brothers I only find "Bürde" as a bundle of clothing, but not as a piece of clothing.

"Der Deckmantel" is more of a metaphor – "the veil of decency", something like that. Or an idiom is "unter dem Deckmantel der Verschwiegenheit" (cover of silence/sworn to silence).

"Der Mantel" is indeed the most common and most general term for all kinds of coats, long or short. Btw, we use simply "der Trenchcoat" in German. *g*

"Der Umhang" is cloak – basically a long and wide piece of fabric with or without hood fastened at the neck.

Hope that helps!