Talk:Broderbund

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Origin of the name "Brøderbund"[edit]

The cited article in CGW #88 says:

> There was a group of merchants in the game known as the "Broederbond," Afrikaans for "association of brothers." When Doug's brother Gary started successfully hawking the game from computer store to computer store, they immediately thought of emphasizing the family aspect of the business.

> That's when Broderbund got its start. However, since Doug had spent some time in South Africa (in fact, was once ousted because he dared to teach at an integrated school in Botswana); there was actually a group known in South Africa as the "broederbond" (who were not especially good guys) and Doug and Gary felt that using the Afrikaans spelling would have implied support for the repressive South African regime, they adopted the variant spelling "Broderbund," which is still in use."


However, a fairly detailed article on http://www.filfre.net/tag/broderbund/ has a different take:

> The name “Brøderbund” itself is of course an odd one that would never pass muster with a corporate public-relations department today. It actually first appears in Doug’s very first game, Galactic Empire, where it’s the name of one of the warring factions. “Brøderbund” is a compound noun that is vaguely recognizable to speakers of a number of languages, but isn’t quite correct in any of them. In Danish and Norwegian, the word “brødre” is the plural of “bror,” which means “brother.” (The “ø” is a special vowel found only in Danish and Norwegian; it’s pronounced like the German “ö,” and, also like “ö,” is often used in plural forms of nouns.) It’s probably acceptable to change it to “brøder” in a compound word, to make pronunciation easier. However, the second part of the name, “bund,” is in no sense correct. The intended meaning is obviously the German “Bund,” meaning a bond or union. Yet in Danish or Norwegian the correct word would be “forbund”; “bund” alone means a ground or base, obviously not the intended meaning. So, what we have here is a mash-up of Danish and German — or an example of a sort of pidgin Danish, if you prefer.

> Which is not to say that the Carlston brothers didn’t know exactly what they were doing in creating the name. Both were fascinated by languages, and enjoyed this sort of linguistic play. They chose to use the Danish and Norwegian word for “brother” in place of Gary’s more familiar Swedish because Swedish uses German-style umlauts; thus the word would have become “bröder.” The problem with “bröder” was that the “ö” would be impossible to represent on computer screens of the time. The “ø,” however, could be represented by simply typing a zero; then as (sometimes) now, computer displays used the slash to easily distinguish “0” from “o.” This also made the name a clever play on computer technology itself. Even in their professional copy, where the proper character would presumably have been available, the company would often write “Brøderbund” as “Br0derbund” to reinforce the computer connection. As for pronunciation… let’s not even get into that. Suffice to say that everyone just said the name as “Broderbund,” although that’s not correct if we insist on reading it as a Scandinavian word.


Google translate recognizes "Broederbond" as the Afrikaans word for "Fraternity".

Curiously, I was unable to find a mention of "Broederbond" in the manuals for Galactic Empire, Galactic Trader, or Tawala's Last Redoubt (see e.g. https://archive.org/details/Galactic_Empire_1979_Broderbund). The only mention is in the background text for Galactic Revolution (#3 in the series), where it is spelled "Broederbund" -- not recognized by Google Translate. The relevant text reads, "It was the aristocracy which fomented the revolution, led by Jan Swart, head of the Broederbund, a secret guild of the traders, who saw their profits threatened by the increasingly insatiable demands of Tawala's burgeoning bureaucracy. But it was du Buque who finally led it and destroyed not only Tawala but the Broederbund as well."

The non-Afrikaans origin story comes from a Computer History Museum interview with Douglas Carlston -- http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_History/Carlston_Doug/Carlston_Doug_1.oral_history.2004.102658043.pdf . On page 10:

> Bergin: Where did you get the word from?

> Carlston: Well, as I said, Gary was a Scandinavian studies major. The word is vaguely Scandinavian and means ‘brotherhood.’ In Swedish, it would be difficult, Broederverbundet, but nobody can say that. People had enough trouble saying Brøderbund. The slash through the ‘o’ was both a play on the Danish way of umlauting an ‘o’ and the computer science way of indicating a zero as opposed to an ‘o.’ So we were playing with both ideas.

Fadden0 (talk) 20:28, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If the desire is to keep the Afrikaner reference out of the article, so be it -- but it's also fairly disingenuous to claim the name Br0derbund has nothing to do with any real word, when "Broederbond" is/was a very real South African society whose name literally translates as "brotherhood".. particularly given that the brothers went so far as to use them as an antagonist. Matthias Alexander Jude Shapiro (talk) 03:37, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 18 June 2016[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move with support. Side comment: the logo has also been updated on the main webpage, and does not feature the stylized "ø". (non-admin closure) — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 21:09, 25 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Brøderbund → Broderbund – I think it's fine to use the "ø" in the lede as the official stylization, but throughout the article, Wikipedia, and most importantly, the sources, the company is called "Broderbund" without the "ø". For what it's worth, it's no longer stylized on its official website either. Per MoS:TM, we should not be using the version with the ø throughout Wikipedia if that isn't how the sources put it. (For proof, see the video game reliable sources custom Google search for "Broderbund".) czar 15:24, 18 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support? If they no longer use the "ø", there's no reason to keep this unconventional stylization.  ONR  (talk)  20:50, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. It's been quite a long time since the stylized company name was used. The original official spelling belongs in the article, but not in the page title. 64.105.98.115 (talk) 17:38, 21 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Source[edit]

"Acquisition of Broderbund by The Learning Company" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

The redirect Acquisition of Broderbund by The Learning Company has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 November 11 § Acquisition of Broderbund by The Learning Company until a consensus is reached. Utopes (talk / cont) 07:00, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology[edit]

The IGN source does give the "loose translation of 'band of brothers'",[1] but it's also contradicted by the also-used New York Times piece[2] where it says it's simply "Danish for brotherhood". Other sources give it as Afrikaans, e.g. [3] I would suggest that at the least this definitive explanation be shaded and deemphasized. Thoughts? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 19:39, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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