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Is there an existing idiomatic way to refer to Dungeons & Dragons?

Do people just use the word for dungeons (which I don't know) and say <word for dungeons> kaj Drakoj, or do they say Do kaj Do, or maybe Do no Do?

Is it perhaps something completely unexpected, like Aligatorejoj kaj Krokodiloj?

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  • I have heard "Danĝerejoj kaj drakoj", but it is not official and there are few results on Google.
    – Mutre
    Oct 4, 2016 at 8:39
  • What do you mean exactly by idiomatic? Are you expecting a phrase like volapukaĵo for a phrase that doesn't have any particular meaning (i.e. there isn't a specific reason to associate dungeons with dragons)?
    – apaderno
    Oct 4, 2016 at 12:19
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    By the way, the game has consistently been titled Dungeons & Dragons, with the ampersand rather than and or ‘n’. That may or may not matter for your purposes, but if it does now you know.
    – KRyan
    Oct 4, 2016 at 13:33
  • @kiamlaluno idiomatic might have been the wrong word; I meant in the sense of "non-English speakers will immediately know what I mean"
    – Elliott
    Oct 5, 2016 at 5:14
  • In that case, just translate the phrase literally. If people don't know about Dungeons & Dragons, they will not understand what it is even if you translate it with different words. It would be like translating X-files. If you are talking to people who don't know what X-files is, they will not understand it when you say NIFO.
    – apaderno
    Oct 5, 2016 at 20:31

2 Answers 2

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I am not sure how “official” this is but there is a Wikipedia page about the game that calls it “Drakoj kaj galerioj”. It also links to this page with the rules of the game in Esperanto, where you can probably find more information about that.

Me ne estas certa kiel „oficiala“ estas ĉi tio, sed ekzistas paĝo en Vikipedio pri la ludo, kiu nomas ĝin „Drakoj kaj galerioj“. Ĝi ankaŭ havas ligilon al ĉi tiu paĝo, enhavanta la regulojn de la ludo en Esperanto. Verŝajne vi povus trovi pli da informoj pri ĝi tie.

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Based on the comment: “...idiomatic might have been the wrong word; I meant in the sense of ‘non-English speakers will immediately know what I mean’”

I believe that the c. 1983 Basic Set is still the edition that was published in the widest number of languages. Looking at the covers that they have pictures of here—Basic Set foreign editions—nearly all use the English “Dungeons & Dragons” on the cover. The one exception is France where it says “Donjons & Dragons”.

So, in Esperanto, it perhaps would be best to use the English name to qualify whatever Esperanto translation you might like. As it seems the English name is likely recognizable to anyone who has encountered the game even if it was only through a localized version. e.g.

Ni ludis Danĝerejojn & Drakojn (angle: Dungeons & Dragons).

Update: For an additional data point, I checked every non-English Wikipedia page linked to by the English D&D Wikipedia page. Of the 42, only 11 did not use the English name for their title. Only one of those, Scots, failed to mention the English name in the body of the article.

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  • damn man. you get an upvote just for thoroughness. ;)
    – masukomi
    Sep 7, 2017 at 20:31

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