Talk:Japanese language

Merged discussion from "Talk:Romanization"

Image caption

Actually, the Japanese language doesn't have any "V" sounds in it, so they use "B" sounds as substitutes, hence mistransliterations like "Minelba". (Sorry if I'm detracting from the humor by being so nitpicky, I just felt the need to point that out.)--TVsGrady 03:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Not at all! Please note it in the caption, explaining how it got so mangled. -Derik 03:16, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Blot

Um, I don't think "Butto" is a result of the Romanization of the name "Blot". I can barely find the similarity. --TX55^TALK 11:49, 1 September 2010 (EDT)

Merge with Engrish?

The difference between this and Engrish isn't quite clear. Everything listed on this page looks like cases of Engrish. Merge articles?--Nevermore 11:13, 17 August 2010 (EDT)

After discussing with User:DrSpengler, we've decided on the following:

1. Cleanup and rewrite of the "Engrish" article to incorporate redundant bits from the "Romanization" article
2. Rewrite of the "Romanization" article so it actually explains its subject, instead of being a second "Engrish" article.

Started the rewrite of "Engrish" in my Sandbox.--Nevermore 09:58, 2 September 2010 (EDT)

All that other language stuff

All that I could see that even mentioned Transformers was the Korean section. Do we want to keep that?KrytenKoro 11:56, 20 April 2013 (EDT)

Korean (한글 Han-gul)

Although the Korean language has not had much effect in the Transformers universe, Transformers programs are aired in the Korean language. This could be confusing, because, just like Japanese, many names on English Transformers were different on Korean Transformers. The Korean language uses the Hangul writing system created by Dynasty Joseon on 1443. Modern day Hangul use Revisised Romanization of Korean to romanize it.

Hangul seems more like Chinese characters (Hanzi), but it is actually a true alphabet of 24 consonant and vowel letters. However, instead of being written sequentially like the letters of the Latin alphabet, Hangul letters are grouped into blocks, such as 한 han, each of which transcribes a syllable. The syllable 한 han may look like a single character, but it is composed of three letters: ㅎ h, ㅏ a, and ㄴ n.

Hangul letters and digraphs are called jamo (자모; 字母) or natsori (낱소리). There are 24 letters and 27 digraphs (and sometimes trigraphs) formed from these letters in the modern script. Of the letters, fourteen are consonants (ja-eum 자음, 子音 "child sounds") and ten are vowels (mo-eum 모음, 母音 "mother sounds"). Five of the consonants are doubled to form the five "tense" (faucalized) consonants of Korean (see below), while another eleven sequences are formed of two different consonants. The ten vowel letters are combined into eleven sequences for diphthongs.

The following letters and clusters of letters are found in the modern script:
14 consonant letters: ㄱ g, ㄴ n, ㄷ d, ㄹ r on top/l on bottom, ㅁ m, ㅂ b, ㅅ s, ㅇ not read on top/ng on bottom, ㅈ j, ㅊ ch, ㅋ k, ㅌ t, ㅍ p, ㅎ h
5 double ("tense") consonants: ㄲ kk, ㄸ tt, ㅃ pp, ㅆ ss, ㅉ jj
11 consonant clusters: ㄳ gs, ㄵ nj, ㄶ nh, ㄺ rg, ㄻ lm, ㄼ lb, ㄽ ls, ㄾ lt, ㄿ lp, ㅀ lh, ㅄ bs
6 vowel letters: ㅏ a, ㅓ eo, ㅗ o, ㅜ u, ㅡ eu, ㅣ i
4 iotized vowels (with a y): ㅑ ya, ㅕ yeo, ㅛ yo, ㅠ yu
5 (iotized) diphthongs: ㅐ ae, ㅒ yae, ㅔ e, ㅖ ye, ㅢ ui
6 vowels and diphthongs with a w: ㅘ wa, ㅙ wae, ㅚ oe, ㅝ wo, ㅞ we, ㅟ wi

Confusion of romanization of Hangul

Hangul not exactly a what-you-see-is-what-you-must-read alphabet. Some letters are not read when they are on bottom of a glyph (in this case, ㄹ and ㅇ have their own rules when placed on top or bottom). For example, Hangukeo (Korean Language) written as 한국어 and supposed to read as Hangugeo, Hangukeun ne gyejeori tturyeothada (Korea has four distinct seasons) written as 한국은 네 계절이 뚜렷하다 and supposed to read as Hangugeun ne gyeojeoli ttureoshada. This confusion has been corrected in Indonesian Hangul.

Cleanup potential

I read the cleanup potential of this page. Well, I'm sorry of it. You could undo all changes that I make. And looks like my grammar is too bad for this. I'm an Indonesian English speaker, not American or British English speaker. There's a lot difference here than on those accent. --Andreanromanky18 22:19, 20 April 2013 (UTC+7)

Another idea...

Wow, a whooping three years later, and I finally get back to this article... anyway, here's another idea of mine:

Basically, there's two different kinds of Romanization. The less common one, at least in relation to Transformers, is transferring names written in Kanji into Romaji, i.e. rendering actual Japanese names in Roman letters. This is where Kōjin Ōno can alternatively also end up as "Kojin Ohno" or "Kouzin Ono". The other type is the more common one, transferring names written in Katakana into Romaji, i.e. trying to decypher "what did they mean by naming this character?", thus re-interpreting an approximation of a foreign name back into English (or German, or whatever language the name was originally derived from). This is where stuff like "Convoy" or "Double Face" is rather easy, while stuff like "Backgild" or "Exigeyser" results in a lot of headscratching, "Autorooper" reveals the shortcomings of the Japanese phonetic system's ability to render sounds from foreign languages, and "Ratatatatatorta" has everyone throwing up their hands.--Nevermore 13:36, 21 April 2013 (EDT)

Merged discussion from "Talk:Engrish"

Cleanup

After discussing with User:DrSpengler, we've decided on the following:

1. Cleanup and rewrite of the "Engrish" article to incorporate redundant bits from the "Romanization" article
2. Rewrite of the "Romanization" article so it actually explains its subject, instead of being a second "Engrish" article.

Started the rewrite of "Engrish" in my Sandbox.--Nevermore 09:57, 2 September 2010 (EDT)

Ported Sandbox discussion

I realize this page is purely under construction, but right now, you classify "Autorooper" and "Lartolarta" as both Engrish and not Engrish. (And personally, I think "Autrooper" gets the pun across, but I'm also not going to press for it if I'm in the minority.)

I also threw in the best theory I know of for Lartolarta's name, but don't feel obligated to include it if you don't like it.--Apcog 11:33, 2 September 2010 (EDT)

I've never understood why "Autrooper" isn't the official spelling, I find it gets the pun across quite well. --Khajidha 12:50, 2 September 2010 (EDT)

As you said, it's still under construction, and some sections are doubled because I'm doing it top-down.--Nevermore 12:09, 3 September 2010 (EDT)

Blast It All

Where did you hear that ブレスト was the standard spelling for "blast" in katakana? At most, it might be an acceptable alternate, but there are far more examples (such as this) of ブレスト being used for "breast" and of ブラスト being used for "blast" than of ブレスト being used for "blast". I suppose it might be considered an "alternate" spelling, but anime-wise, ブレスト had been established as a kana spelling for "breast" at least since Mazinger Z in the '70s, so Takara's choice to use it for "Blast" still seems odd to me.

There's also their choice to use "breeze" (ブリーズ) instead of (ブレーズ) "blaze" to spell "Blaze Master" in kana. It's not even a matter of avoiding confusing his name with Blades, whom they renamed Graze...--Apcog 19:30, 4 September 2010 (EDT)

I just checked: ブレーズ is apparently the katakana rendition of either "braids" or the name "Blaise". Autobase Aichi transliterated G1 Blades' name as ブレイズ... which is more commonly used to render "Blaze" according to a quick Google search. But speaking of, "Graze" could also be the cause of human error, similar to my "Metroplex vs. Metroflex" theory below. ブ and グ aren't that different. Imagine names back then being forwarded by fax. Add a poorly printed fax, and you get an extra stroke that turns a "bu" into a "gu".--Nevermore 17:14, 3 April 2011 (EDT)

More Fun Info

Here's another potentially useful link for Engrish spellings...--Apcog 20:58, 4 September 2010 (EDT)

Metroplex...

This reminds me... I once had a discussion with a native Japanese speaker about Takara's choice to rename G1 Metroplex into "Metroflex", and we came to the conclusion that this might have actually been due to human error... namely, someone mistaking a フ for a プ. Maybe some coffee got spilled over a paper sheet, and someone mistook a drop for a small circle? Of course this is just totally random speculation, bt it could explain this weird, minimal name change.--Nevermore 08:32, 14 September 2010 (EDT)

G1 Hook

Where do I place him?

A native Japanese speaker told me that "grane" is actually an antiquated (but once-widespread) Engrish rendition of "crane", and thus G1 Hook's Japanese name, "Gren", is sort of a pun based on... another instance of Engrish.--Nevermore 10:42, 19 October 2010 (EDT)

I'd prefer to see supporting evidence of that. Otherwise, I say it's far more likely that "Gren" is merely a slight rearrangement of kana, the equivalent of spelling "Blades" as "Blaydz".--Apcog 14:42, 19 October 2010 (EDT)

Here's a direct quote I got from SydneyY at TFW2005, reproduced here with kind permission (including some minor fixes on my behalf, also with permission):

Yeah, I can imagine it hard to explain to English speakers to begin with, since there's nothing similar between "Crane　クレーン" and "Glen　グレン". It is so obvious in katakana as you know, though.

Anyway, I looked up the word again, here are some blogs that mention the word: [1][2] [3]'

The first author writes his grandfather (born in the Meiji period) used the word, and the third one's author (born in the early Showa period, 1932) uses the word as something he was familiar with when he worked at a shipbuilder.

According to Wikipedia, "gren" is listed as current Hiroshima dialect: [4]

Though the second blog is from Ehime, which is across the Seto Inland Sea from Hiroshima. I guess the word isn't exclusively used in the Hiroshima area.

So it seems that "gren" is a word used in docks and shipyards in that part of Japan (might be nationwide, but I have no data on this), and is still actively used by some locals.

I wonder if the person who named Hook "Gren" was from Hiroshima?

Hope this helps.

So do I.--Nevermore 10:38, 20 October 2010 (EDT)

Much obliged; that's exactly what I needed to see.

Very interesting. In the first link, one responder wonders whether "Gren" is a dialectal word. The one whose father was born in the Meiji era isn't sure if the pronunciation was unique to his father or people of that era or what.

The the other two blogs only mention the word in passing, but it's definitely there as an equivalent to "crane". Hard to judge the significance of the second blog being from Ehime. Geographically, that's still close to Hiroshima, and the mentioned user of the word might have been from Hiroshima originally, for all we know.

Of course, even if we allow "gren" as a dialectal/archaic variant, there's no English-language equivalent. It's not like "skillet" and "frying pan"; there's no dialectal equivalent for "crane" that I'm aware of, so both would translate as "crane".

It'd definitely be nice if we could confirm the possibility of Gren's namer being from Hiroshima, but I suspect that would be very difficult to do. Even Mr. Yoke might not remember who was responsible for that.--Apcog 15:55, 20 October 2010 (EDT)

Here's an update from SydneyY, quoted with permission:

Do you remember when you asked me about Gren/Hook a long while ago? I was just reading an article in a book and came across Mr.Yoke's bio and found that he himself is from Ehime prefecture.

If you recall, the links I provided mostly indicated the dialect was commonly used in Hiroshima, but there was one from Ehime, which is across Seto ocean from Hiroshima. Maybe Mr. Yoke named Gren himself?

Just dropping by to share, as I didn't know where Mr.Yoke was from and thought it was interesting.

Speculation, but interesting nontheless.--Nevermore 09:59, 20 September 2011 (EDT)

Weird translation issues

I remember when BW Neo was first showing up, BWN Hardhead was insanely delightfully mistranslated as "Birdhead." -hx 11:47, 19 October 2010 (EDT)

Merge with Romanization

I think this article could do with being merged into Romanization, and both could do with being pared down a whole lot. There's no real reason for us to have both pages, and anything on that page that isn't redundant with this one is just... rephrasing from Wikipedia. And that's not to mention the *contents* of this page, much of which is rooted in "wow japan so wacky and silly".--Riptide (talk) 21:31, 18 July 2021 (EDT)

I am in favor of the merge and paring down. MrRald (talk) 21:33, 18 July 2021 (EDT)

Thirding this. -AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 21:46, 18 July 2021 (EDT)

The thing is, not every instance of Engrish is Romanization. The mainpic example itself, for instance, is just bad translation. --Sabrblade (talk) 21:55, 18 July 2021 (EDT)

I'm for the merge. I'm sure we could split the other cases (mentioned by Sabrblade) that don't fit with the overall theme into their own section further down the page or something. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 22:02, 18 July 2021 (EDT)

Honestly building out the resultant article into one on Translation/Mistranslation overall wouldn't be a terrible idea either. -AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 23:09, 18 July 2021 (EDT)