TheUltimateNinja wrote:In this case human effectively has the same meaning as mortal, the distinction is meaningless since both are used to describe someone who is not a God, except human isn't used that way at all in modern English, and it wasn't really used that way in archaic English either, rather it was mortals that could be used to mean humans rather than the other way around.
Also, there are many deities who can be killed yet are not classified as mortals in religion/mythology, mortal doesn't necessarily have to mean one who is not immortal.
Again, please stop bringing the real world into this. This is only about Dragon Ball. In this case, human does not effectively h ave the same meaning as mortal because this is not just about gods versus non-gods. If you look back at my original response to Gog, I listed other character besides gods who are typically not lumped into the human category in Dragon Ball. Even in the post you just quoted, I referred to the group that includes characters like #16, #17, and #18. And they consider themselves to be separate from "ningen." Is that because they're gods? Certainly not. Is it because they can't die? Also certainly not.
Now I'm not even going to pretend that the usage of ningen across the franchise is completely consistent. For example, Pilaf is not considered a human-type earthling but a monster-type earthling. Does that mean that he's exempt from Zamasu's Zero Human Plan? I would guess probably not. But Pilaf not being considered a "ningen"-type earthling also probably doesn't mean he's immortal (unless, since Super has still yet to establish why he's a kid, maybe we're to believe he is immortal and transformed himself into a kid). But looking at all the examples across the franchise, human has always been and continues to be the best way to translate it, quite simply because there's really no context in Dragon Ball in which mortal isn't either completely nonsensical or simply contradictory.
I guess the reason this grinds my gears so much (oh, crap, I'm in the wrong thread!) is that this seems to be a reactionary argument in the first place due only to the fact that the majority of the English-speaking fandom hadn't been introduced to this usage until now. No one in the English-speaking world ever put up much of a fuss about this before Dragon Ball Super came along, despite the fact that #17 and #18 were referring to Vegeta as a "ningen" 25 years ago! But this was also the first time that the entirety of the English-speaking fanbase was watching the series together, subtitled, with the same Dragon Team translation rather than the loosey-goosey dub they were used to. And now, all of a sudden, human is too confusing a term and must be fudged around with as if it's some kind of brand-new concept. Well, it's not. And I chafe at the thought of being expected to suddenly change this convention, not for any real benefit, but simply because, "Well, we've always used the term 'human' to talk about Kuririn and the others, so this is confusing me!" Well, when this very forum brought the subject to my attention several years ago, I was one of those people who used the term "human" to refer to Earthlings. But upon getting the actual facts, I changed the way I did things!
Don't get me wrong. Compared to other terrible mistranslations and mischaracterizations introduced to the English-speaking fandom, translating "ningen" as mortals is small potatoes. It's not like people are advocating translating it as "peanut butter" or "a brilliant scientist" or some other term ningen could never legitimately be translated as. Out of this context, mortal could be the go-to translation for this. But in Dragon Ball, in my opinion, it really does not fit. And that's probably something you and I are going to have to agree to disagree on because I really have nowhere else to go with this.
