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Or has it just been literally translated from German, and does not appear in any source originally written by a native English speaker? Pls let me know - and the WP users too. It's a real question, not a rhetorical one. Thanks, Arminden (talk) 13:57, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I have now looked it up on Google and the result is: It's NOT a proper English-language term, but a literal translation of the German term, and apparently only used in English texts in German contexts, and likely not very thoughtfully adopted from German. It might catch on, but it's not there yet. One might as well use the original German "Schildmauer" with an explanation, as Prof. Robert R. Taylor did, since shield wall already means smth. else in English. The hyphen used by Taylor might be of some help. Arminden (talk) 14:47, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Google is useful, but needs careful interpretation. English specialist books (as opposed e.g. to tourist guides) that aren't restricted to castles in Britain do tend to use "shield wall", and sometimes "shield-wall". For example, The Medieval Fortress by Kaufmann & Kaufmann says "A shield wall is a masonry structure used as a main defensive position and substantially higher than curtain walls." It then describes shield walls in Eastern Europe. By contrast the same book is quite happy to leave French terms such as bretèche untranslated. Equally, The Castles of the Rhine by Taylor, which you quote, uses "shield-wall" and, under Schildmauer even says "see shield-wall". Some English sources do use "Schildmauer ("shield wall"), so I'll include it as an option. Bermicourt (talk) 21:49, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
PS I reverted the edits under WP:BRD (not BLD, sorry that was a typo), but the software wouldn't let me leave valid changes such as the section headers. I've restored those manually as I think they're helpful. Bermicourt (talk) 21:54, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
