Talk:Gobu

Uh, neither "Cobra" or "Gobu" has a long o. Even if it did, it's not a name based on English linguistics to begin with, so trying to apply English orthography to it is silly. —Interrobang 13:15, 2 February 2012 (EST)

...how on earth do you pronounce "Cobra"? Also, we don't HAVE an official Romanization, so the names should be written in a way that someone might plausibly be able to look at them and know what they are. And every English-speaker on Earth will look at "Gob" and rhyme it with "slob". -LV 14:02, 2 February 2012 (EST)

Interrobang lived in New York, LV, he knows what a "cahbra" is. --ItsWalky 15:06, 2 February 2012 (EST)

If you want to get technical, fans are the people using this wiki. Fans know that this toy is Japanese, and many of them have a rudimentary idea of how Japanese pronunciation works. By calling it "Gobe", you're suggesting that it might be pronounced "Goh-Bay" ;)--BraveMax 04:35, 3 February 2012 (EST)

We could maybe just add a note about how it's pronounced. --abates 04:46, 3 February 2012 (EST)

"and many of them have a rudimentary idea of how Japanese pronunciation works"... I think you drastically over-estimate the fandom's understanding of Japanese... especially if you look at their understanding of English. --M Sipher 08:08, 3 February 2012 (EST)

Some of them, for example, think "cobra" doesn't have a long o. --ItsWalky 10:33, 3 February 2012 (EST)

I totally agree that someone might mistake this for "Go-bay". But they also might think it's pronounced "gobe", whereas no one would ever think "gob" was pronounced as anything but "gob". As for fans "knowing" how to pronounce things, there was over a decade of people who thought "Seacons" was pronounced "See-uh-cons", and judging by the ways people spell it, essentially nobody who prefers "Deszaras" over "Deathsaurus" knows how to pronounce it. -LV 09:35, 3 February 2012 (EST)

I, for one, am confused. How is Gobu pronounced? - Starfield 10:51, 3 February 2012 (EST)

And how is it derived from or reminiscent of "cobra"? --Khajidha 11:01, 3 February 2012 (EST)

It's pronounced "gobe", like your brain's frontal "lobe", or when you wear a "robe". It's derived from cobra because cobra's pronounced "cobe"-ra. It rhymes. - Chris McFeely 11:07, 3 February 2012 (EST)

Brainfart. I meant "kobura", the Japanese word. Which doesn't have a long o for whatever reason (probably because the original Portuguese word doesn't). Japanese is pretty straightforward in that and I don't why we're insisting that something's there when it isn't. —Interrobang 19:28, 3 February 2012 (EST)

The "ko" in "kobura" is still pronounced like the "co" in the English word "cold". The Japanese don't use the same kind of short O sound as English. To get an English Short O sound, they use what Romanizes out as an A, as it sounds like the A in "father". If they wanted his name to rhyme with "Bob", they would have spelled in in a way that would be Romanized as "Gabu". --Sabrblade 00:56, 4 February 2012 (EST)

Uh, "Bob" is rendered as ボブ. "Cob/Cobb", as used in personal names, is コブ. And Gobu still doesn't have the long vowel that "Gobe" indicates. —Interrobang 02:23, 4 February 2012 (EST)

Why not just leave it at "Gob" with a note saying that it's pronounced like "Gohb"? It worked for Devil Z ("Zed" instead of "Zee"). --Sabrblade 12:25, 3 February 2012 (EST)

I vote for an Arrested Development joke. 24.11.110.62 20:05, 3 February 2012 (EST)

I have no idea what's going on, but if we're getting naked I'm all for it! -Derik 01:26, 4 February 2012 (EST)

Just to input some on the Japanese front: While short-o words may often be approximated in Japanese with -o kana (though -a kana is also sometimes used), they are still pronounced with the long-o sound like any other -o kana. Case in point, if you search "コブラ" at the wwwjdic, they make it very clear that it has a long-o sound.

Also, the katakana words using "gobu" are translated as Gobelins, Goblin, and Goblet.192.249.47.195 11:44, 4 February 2012 (EST)

I'm not really sure what your point is? That the Japanese o is the vowel used in the English "long o"? Or that コブラ is pronounced by native Japanese as コーブラ, despite not being written as such? —Interrobang 15:01, 4 February 2012 (EST)

The Japanese O sound is pronounced exactly like the how the English letter O sounds in the English word "cold". That sound is used in Gob's name. --Sabrblade 20:53, 4 February 2012 (EST)

Cone-voy! - Starfield 22:08, 4 February 2012 (EST)

Which IS how they pronounce it in the Japanese cartoons. --M Sipher 02:41, 5 February 2012 (EST)

Or, more like "Cone-boy" (given the v/b deal), but yeah. With "Gob", think "Goal" with a "b" instead of an "l" at the end. --Sabrblade 15:50, 5 February 2012 (EST)

That's コルダ -Derik 23:06, 4 February 2012 (EST)

So... Not to bring this back up... But since we'll most likely be seeing a lot more of these... Until we have an official romanization (which will, in all likelihood, be wildly incorrect anyways), shouldn't we err on the side of academically-accepted romanization of Japanese kana or at least a spelling that would be pronounced correctly by this wiki's primary audience? A native Japanese speaker would never pronounce this name "Gob" or "Baro" as "Bulo". Therefore, those two (as an example) should be spelled "Gobu" or "Gohb" and "Baro" or "Bahro"... --BraveMax 02:43, 17 April 2012 (EDT)