Talk:Black Roritchi

Moved discussion from "Talk:Fasttrack (G1)"

Would anyone know what "roritchi / ロリッチ" means? I'd guess something like "low ridge" but I'm not sure if that could be right without a prolonged "o"-sound. Geewunling 13:48, 12 December 2010 (EST)

On a related note, wouldn't it make more sense for his name to be rendered as "Roricchi" given that the small ッ has the effect of doubling the next normal-sized character's consonant sound? --Sabrblade (talk) 00:25, 21 February 2020 (EST)

[[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Hepburn romanization#Long consonants|{{#if:||Hepburn romanization#Long consonants}}]]. "ch" is not a k sound, but tsh, so the sound being repeated is t. Saix (talk) 01:21, 21 February 2020 (EST)

I know it's not a K sound. In my university's Japanese classes, we were taught that the small ッ placed before チ would turn "chi" into "cchi" when written in Latin script, and that to speak it one would add a brief glottal stop to the beginning of the affected consonant sound. --Sabrblade (talk) 01:33, 21 February 2020 (EST)

Then your class wasn't using standard Hepburn rules. [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Matcha|{{#if:||Matcha}}]] [mat.tɕa], not maccha; the consonant sound is actually being repeated (think "catchain") and doesn't contain a glottal stop. Saix (talk) 02:04, 21 February 2020 (EST)

Saix is correct. For a famous example, the Hepburn scheme dictates the Romanized spelling "etchi" in contrast to the colloquially popular "ecchi" for「エッチ」. And to the main point at hand, I agree that if indeed derived from some English word, then「ロリッチ」should be rendered something like "Lorich", though I cannot discern the origin. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 04:26, 21 February 2020 (EST)

It's either entirely made-up or something like "Rollich", from what I can gather. Saix (talk) 09:28, 21 February 2020 (EST)

Thank you both for the correction. --Sabrblade (talk) 10:56, 21 February 2020 (EST)

lorica noun

lo·​ri·​ca | \ lə-ˈrī-kə \ plural loricae\ lə-​ˈrī-​kē , -​ˌsē \ Definition of lorica 1: a Roman cuirass of leather or metal 2[New Latin, from Latin] : a hard protective case or shell (as of a rotifer) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cyriljackal (talk • contribs){{#if:| {{{2}}}|}}.

ロリカ is not ロリッチ and that makes no sense for this character. Saix (talk) 00:31, 22 August 2020 (EDT)

Could his name be a combination of roll and sasori? I have no idea how the characters would work but the thought came to me because he turns into a wheeled vehicle and is associated with Black Zarak, who turns into a scorpion (sasori in Japanese). The "itchi" part I don't know maybe it's just to make it sound more sci-fi. Sounds like Arms Micron logic now that I typed it out —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Toadboiler (talk • contribs){{#if:20:35, 19 May 2021| 20:35, 19 May 2021|}}.

ロリッチ = Lolich
The only actual instances I could find of ロリッチ in Japanese pages (outside of the Transformer) are the professional baseball players Ron Lolich and Mickey Lolich. The meaning of the family name Lolich is not known, as far as I can tell. Why a Decepticon would be named after a baseball player is unclear, but baseball is popular in Japan and Ron Lolich did play for two Japanese teams from 1974–1976. It also stands out to me that the katakana for 'Lolich' is structurally identical to 'Zarak': a mora, a mora, a small 'tsu', and a mora with a devoiced vowel. Romanized, it's ZA-RA-(tsu)-Ku and RO-RI-(tsu)-CHi. This is an example of common Japanese wordplay.
In addition, I found this "Ask Vector Prime" tumblr post which discusses the topic:
Ask "Vector Prime" on Tumblr
but the canonicity of this story is apparently nil:
Vector Prime on Vector Prime
Greboguru (talk) 18:09, 1 July 2021 (EDT)

Guardminders

So is he the Guardminder's Leader or is this just speculation? (AutoTrooper2801 (talk) 22:01, 3 January 2022 (EST))

Read the note. Saix (talk) 22:53, 3 January 2022 (EST)

Mentioning the Navokov in the Room

"Black ロリッチ" is a pain in the ass to translate:

• Basically "ロリ" means loli, short for Lolita, either denoting 'young girl', or simply 'young person', or even just 'something which is cute' in the chibbi sense; an infantalizing prefix.
• The suffix "ッチ" can be a suffix which indicates endearment or as a diminuitive.
• "ッチ" can also mean "immediately, at once, post-haste, done in an express manner"
• Meanwhile "itchi" can mean "group/collective/swarm/chorus", and while the Guardminders are definately such a group that doesn't seem to be a correct reading. (Unless it's a pun while also primarily meaning something else.)
• "っち", pronounced, 'tch' is also sometimes used for the word 'touch'. Fortunately this seems to be limited to contexts like "touch screens," and so "dark child-toucher" is not a possible translation.
• And of course "rori" could also be read as "Lori", which is a kind of truck.

"Black" means black, though it is also used to mean 'unethical' or 'wicked', in the sense of the phrase "Black Pirate band."

So we are left with possible translations like "Black Cute-Speedy", or "Black speed-truck." Which... the *American* version of the mold is called "Fasttrack." ...what if someone in Japan misread that as **"Fast-truck"* when they were coming up with the name?

The only other alternative translation I see is... Gothic Lolita? If it's a reference to that type of fashion it would be awfully early... Gothic Lolita didn't really spread until the 1990s, OTOH Masterforce was pretty tuned into gothic stylings via Mega and Giga.

I honestly think it means "Black Fastruck." Which makes the 'black' utterly insane. That at least made semi-sense with 'Gothic Lolita,' since it was part of a phrase. (I suppose that he is "Black" in relation to serving under Black Zarak.)

So... Wicked Fasttrack? The prefix and suffix in ロリッチ can both mean cute-or-diminuitive as applied to snacks or cakes. Is he Wicked Sweet?-Derik (talk) 07:19, 8 October 2024 (EDT)

What does it matter? All of this is too speculative without an official source to back it up, and we're not renaming the page anyway. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 09:05, 8 October 2024 (EDT)

Presumably because it's a note that makes more sense than "we don't know what it means, maybe it's a reference to an American baseball player for some reason?" Pretty sure it wouldn't be the first time that we had notes about translation speculation on pages with difficult-to-translate names. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 05:50, 22 November 2024 (EST)

Those usually have better basis than whatever this Pepe Silvia thing is. Saix (talk) 10:32, 22 November 2024 (EST)