Romanisation

[Sjiveru]

I was just curious how Japanese words and names would be romanised.

Two main requests:
Names in Japanese, not Western order (seeing 'Nobunaga Oda' makes my eyes bleed).
Long vowels written somehow (i.e. shougun or shôgun (preferably the first one), not shogun) -- not writing long vowels is like spelling Swedish without å, ä or ö.

Hepburn romanisation is mostly good, except using diacritics for long vowels (ô) looks a lot worse in my opinion than spelling them following the kana spelling (so Tôtômi province looks better as Tootoumi). I know from discussions over in the MEIOU subforum that I am very much in the minority in thinking this, though. I'd just be happy if they're marked at all.
(Also, if you use Hepburn romanisation, please don't use the macron over n. It looks awful, and doesn't serve any real purpose that the occasional apostrophe can't cover much better.)

 

[semaphore]

Shogun is better than Shougun IMHO. I don't see any reason to write the 'u' in except for people learning how to write the Japanese word in hiragana. And it just looks awkward - Tootoumi is unnecessarily long compared to Totomi, if you ask me.

 

[Sakura]

Paradox makes extensive use of diacritics in their other games so there's a fair chance they'll show up here. I'd rather they left out long vowels completely if they don't include macrons. I can't really see the purpose; 99% of players would still be mangling the pronunciation in their heads as they read the words anyway.

I have never seen anyone actually use n̄ and n' is pretty damn rare in the wild as well. I doubt either of those will be used.

Ultimately, I'll be happy as long as its not Kunrei-shiki.

 

[SlyEcho]

shougun or shôgun (preferably the first one), not shogun

I'd prefer shōgun myself, because I'm used to it. Syôgun would be unfamiliar to most people.

Best would be 將軍 or 将軍 of course.

 

[Sujit]

I like it ti be most correct as possible.

 

[Järnblomma]

Long vowels as ô and û I like. They are correct and even poeple who haven't seen the words before can see what those letters symbolize roughly. They also look as we are used to, so such rather unwieldy words like Tootoumi are instantly recognized as Totomi - or rather Tôtômi.

Also I believe people who aren't overly familiar with the era and place might like these as they look exotic to the regular westerner. Look at the abundance of ' and umlauts in fantasy and Sci-Fi.

 

[Sakura]

Long vowels as ô and û I like. They are correct and even poeple who haven't seen the words before can see what those letters symbolize roughly. They also look as we are used to, so such rather unwieldy words like Tootoumi are instantly recognized as Totomi - or rather Tôtômi.

Also I believe people who aren't overly familiar with the era and place might like these as they look exotic to the regular westerner. Look at the abundance of ' and umlauts in fantasy and Sci-Fi.

Fair enough. In that case it should be ō and ū, though... carets aren't usually used.

 

[khannate]

I have no objections to your suggestions, but for 遠江, the corrext spelling should be Tôtoumi, because it should is pronounced
遠(Tôto)-江(Umi) [originally 遠(Tôtsu)-淡(Awa)-海(Umi)], and the vowels between are pronounced separately so they don't become ô. However I have to say that the distinction betwenn ou and ô is a bit vague in Japanese, it pretty much depends on the speed of your speech.

 

[Järnblomma]

Fair enough. In that case it should be ō and ū, though... carets aren't usually used.

Yes, thing is, the Swedish keyboards do not have the straight one so we use the caret instead. It works at university-level, so that's why I used it now. But if the straight one is more correct, I am for it.

I have no objections to your suggestions, but for 遠江, the corrext spelling should be Tôtoumi, because it should is pronounced
遠(Tôto)-江(Umi) [originally 遠(Tôtsu)-淡(Awa)-海(Umi)], and the vowels between are pronounced separately so they don't become ô. However I have to say that the distinction betwenn ou and ô is a bit vague in Japanese, it pretty much depends on the speed of your speech.

Oh, I see.
Well, when there are two different words it should not be combined into ô, as you describe.
So yeah, I agree. =)

 

[Sakura]

Yes, thing is, the Swedish keyboards do not have the straight one so we use the caret instead. It works at university-level, so that's why I used it now. But if the straight one is more correct, I am for it.

English keyboards don't have either

That's one of the things about EU3 that's a bit annoying. It can be hard to do a province search when you can't type a province's name on your keyboard.

 

[Sujit]

But PI have said that they will fix that on CK2, so they must to that here too.

 

[semaphore]

I have no objections to your suggestions, but for 遠江, the corrext spelling should be Tôtoumi, because it should is pronounced
遠(Tôto)-江(Umi)

Umm, that doesn't seem right. Admittedly I've never actually heard 遠江 spoken before, but I'm fairly sure 遠 is pronounced tō, as in 遠い tōi, and not tôto. So 江 would be とうみ, or tōmi.

 

[khannate]

Umm, that doesn't seem right. Admittedly I've never actually heard 遠江 spoken before, but I'm fairly sure 遠 is pronounced tō, as in 遠い tōi, and not tôto. So 江 would be とうみ, or tōmi.

Lake Biwa used to be called 淡海（Oumi, pronounciation evolved from Awaumi), 江(Kou), or 近江(Oumi,近 means 'near', and this reading is an ateji)　, and the name 遠江(Tôtoumi) means 'far from Oumi', and as I said it was first called Tôtsuawaumi, and gradually changed to Tôtsuawaumi→Tôtsuoumi→Tôtoumi. So the correct explanation would be 遠[淡](Tôto)-江(Umi) I guess.


If you can read Japanese, here is the explanation for 遠つ(Tôtsu).

【遠つ】とおつ（とほ-)
（連語）（形容詞「とほし」の語幹に格助詞「つ」が付いた物）名詞について、遠く離れたところにある、遠い昔の、などの意を表す。

 

[Sakura]

Regardless of the linguistic origin, Tōtōmi is the more common romanization in Japan.

(Incidentally, since tsu is a particle and not actually part of the adjective 遠し, I'd break it down the original as Tō-tsu-oumi, myself. But this is a fool's task... these kind of changes don't follow any predictable process.)

 

[semaphore]

遠江(Tôtoumi) means 'far from Oumi', and as I said it was first called Tôtsuawaumi, and gradually changed to Tôtsuawaumi→Tôtsuoumi→Tôtoumi. So the correct explanation would be 遠[淡](Tôto)-江(Umi) I guess.

I think Totsuawaumi meant the fresh water lake that's further away (from Kyoto), i.e. Lake Hamana in Shizuoka, as opposed to Lake Biwa.

But actually, isn't Totomi's pronounciation jukujikun? So we shouldn't be trying to dissect it in the first place

 

[khannate]

I think Totsuawaumi meant the fresh water lake that's further away (from Kyoto), i.e. Lake Hamana in Shizuoka, as opposed to Lake Biwa.

But actually, isn't Totomi's pronounciation jukujikun? So we shouldn't be trying to dissect it in the first place

Yes, I was wrong. My encyclopedia was not claer with regards to that. But I believe Tôtoumi is dissectable. It is not like 紅葉(Momiji), where it is impossible to dissect, e.g. as 紅(Momi)葉(Ji). It is just that the sound つ(Tsu) is abbreviated, in the same way の(no) is abbreviated in 藤原道長(Fujiwara no Michinaga). I still think Tôtoumi is more accurate romanisation than Totomi. My GoggleIME does not convert とおとおみ(Totomi) to 遠江, whereas for とおとうみ(Totoumi) it does. Totomi is well acceptable, though.

 

[Sjiveru]

Yeah, Tootoumi is one of those weird cases where it's not entirely clear what it's supposed to be. (That's why I just spell it the way it's spelled with kana, seems easiest to me -- I'm not entirely sure I understand the rationale behind diacritics.)

My one big fear is that they will leave long vowels unmarked -- I read 'Totomi' and think ととみ, which it very much isn't. Really, I'm happy however they mark them, as long as they do. (The screenshot scares me, since it says 'Chuzenji' - I really hope that by release that becomes Chuuzenji or Chûzenji or whatever.)

 

[SlyEcho]

However I have to say that the distinction betwenn ou and ô is a bit vague in Japanese, it pretty much depends on the speed of your speech.

In classical Japanese ou, ofu, oho, owo, au, afu are all pronounced ō. But what would the correct romanization be? Conveying pronounciation is important, but one hopes that the original etymology stays intact.

 

[Sakura]

In classical Japanese ou, ofu, oho, owo, au, afu are all pronounced ō. But what would the correct romanization be? Conveying pronounciation is important, but one hopes that the original etymology stays intact.

You want them to use pre-modern spelling?

 

[semaphore]

Yeah, and it's not really preserving any etymology. Kinda like spelling 'what' as 'hwæt' for English - would only be unnecessarily confusing, and no one except linguists would know the roots either way. In any case, ō is just the result of pronouncing o followed immediately by u. As I said I haven't actually heard Totomi pronounced in real life, but you can see here that Omi is pronounced as ō-mi as opposed to o-u-mi here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnPthJ9Lkuo

(The screenshot scares me, since it says 'Chuzenji' - I really hope that by release that becomes Chuuzenji or Chûzenji or whatever.)

The Nobufusa name is pretty cool though, isn't it?

It is just that the sound つ(Tsu) is abbreviated, in the same way の(no) is abbreviated in 藤原道長(Fujiwara no Michinaga).

I don't think the の is ever abbreviated out of his name?