Names & Phrases: Translate or Not?

[nathantheguitarist]

The biggest example I know of "Trunks" being an official spelling of his name is in the DBZ "Legends" manual. I scanned mine a long time ago, but can't find the files. But in there, several main characters all have katakana/kanji spellings, while Trunks is specifically "TRUNKS" in this. It's such a sore thumb, and I've always thought it was hilarious. If anyone can post a scan of it, please do! If not, I'll try and take a picture tomorrow.

Ok fine... And I was semi-wrong. It has the katakana above it, but it makes it pretty damn official looking compared to the kanji that Goku and Gohan have.

[Xyex]

Same with Broly. I don't see how "Broly" works when its supposed to be "Broccoli".

Buu and Broly work for Boo and Broccoli in the same way that Kakarotto, Raditz, Vegeta, Toma, and Bardock work for Carrot, Radish, Vegetable, Tomato, and Burdock.

[Olivier Hague]

There's plenty of JP DBZ stuff out there with spellings that don't match what the majority of English speakers (Americans especially, of course) use.

And they're sometimes incorrect.
Case and point:

You just forgot to explain how exactly those were "incorrect"...

Oh and "Djinn" is an acceptable translation, it just conflicts with the "M" written on his belt.

I never said otherwise. I don't particularly like it (swapping out a foreign word for another foreign word)

Well, "djinn" does show up in English dictionaries...

I don't think "Turles" is right at all if you realize they meant it to be "Lettuce". Same with Broly. I don't see how "Broly" works when its supposed to be "Broccoli".

"Meant to be"? "Supposed to be"?
The names are just puns on English words. They're not "supposed to be" / "meant to be" the actual English words.

[Commander_Red]

Translations are tricky but to put this into context you should see how such things have been done to comics from other countries. Asterix I think is a very good example - http://www.alsintl.com/blog/comic-translation/

[Velasa]

Damn, that took a while to read through... But on the topic.

I come at this as a fanfic author whose experience goes back into the days things were still fresh and going her in the states back in '99- we were still in mid-Freezer and had no officially translated source for a lot of this stuff so we used the conventional fan terms like Mirai. It's really just what we all got used to and it was considered a completely acceptable part of conversation among the fandom. In fics in particular there was just an understood list of Japanese terms that were and weren't acceptable as common parlance in fandom (chibi, okassan, otousan, honorifics, some mild insults). Basically we didn't have these hard-and-fast NO ENGLISH/NO JAPANESE rules, we just went with the actual reality of the community and what could be expected of our readers' knowledge.

Long story short? If the term is correct and common enough that it can be understood, go ahead and use it. It's fine to call the main character Goku or Gokhu or Son or Kakkarott/o because those are all actual acceptable names for the man when names translated through three languages will never have a translation everyone will agree exactly on. Mirai and Future both work, it's just that some of us like Miari, find it useful, or have it simply ingrained into our brain from the days before we even met the character and simply understood that to be what to call him. If you like Future better go on ahead and use it! We both know what the other means if you've spent any time at all in fandom.

Myself, I make no great claims of hard and fast rules of consistency. I was conformable with fandom usage ten years ago and I'm still comfortable with it now. I use some terms simply out of affection (Nameksei, Neru, Ranchi) and some are just trapped in my brain and refuse to leave despite my best efforts (Freezer, Burdock, the dreaded TlEN). I'll switch between Nameccian and Namekseijin, Saiyan and Sayiajin because I'm equally comfortable using both with the crowds I run in. We all understand what it means.. so I don't really see the big deal if the shoe fits and everybody knows what shoe it is anyway.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

How is "Majin" any less of a name for a group of people than "Saiyajin" is? They both end in the exact same kanji (人) that signifies as much. Near as I can tell, we've got quite a collection of characters that fall under the group (Dabra, Pui-Pui, Yakon, Supopovitch, Yamu, maybe Vegeta). They may not be a "race" in the sense that they were "born into" it, but it's the same idea with the exact same word formation.

The only thing that even remotely separates them is that one character in the series gets his "race" plopped before his given name for a little bit (Majin Buu). It's really no different than all the other qualifiers being tossed into the mix ("Future Trunks"), except that characters literally speak aloud this one far more often and the precious FUNimation dub decided to leave it untranslated/unadapted.

The title Majin refers to only one person in the series and that is Majin Boo. Dabura was a Demon King, Puipui and Yakon were from their own respective planets, Vegeta is definately not a Majin, he is a Saiyan and Spopovitch and Yam where humans, possed by Babbidi which does not necessarily make them Majins.

Majin isn't a race of people like the Saiyans, it refers to one extraordinary Demon being who has the title of Majin, much like Lucifer in Dragon Ball Movie 2.

[Xyex]

Majin isn't a race of people like the Saiyans, it refers to one extraordinary Demon being who has the title of Majin, much like Lucifer in Dragon Ball Movie 2.

Maybe at first, but now that DBO is out, and is the official continuation of Dragonball, Majin is now a race.

[Bussani]

I saw Majin as more of a description/race than a title, personally -- just like Mirai, although I haven't used that one much myself. I mean, Majin is a pretty common term for mystical creatures in Japanese fiction. I guess I'd say it's a bit of both, though.

[VegettoEX]

Well, "djinn" does show up in English dictionaries...

Fair point. The English language incorporates just as many loanwords as any other modern language. I dunno... still seems weird to me to translate a Japanese word with a word of Arabic origin, and one that doesn't seem as heavily entrenched in our everyday language as other loanwords (maybe something like "Hors d'œuvre").

I don't think "Turles" is right at all if you realize they meant it to be "Lettuce". Same with Broly. I don't see how "Broly" works when its supposed to be "Broccoli".

"Meant to be"? "Supposed to be"?
The names are just puns on English words. They're not "supposed to be" / "meant to be" the actual English words.

In those cases, no. Words like "Trunks" and "Cell" are pretty obviously meant to be the words themselves, though. There are no rearranged syllables, extended vowels, combination with other words, etc. They're the everyday kana-izations of our English words. Then again, even when Toriyama tells us what it's a play on, we have no idea what he was thinking at the time... I don't think we can ever really say "It's a pun" or "It's the word itself" with 100% authority... but dammit, we'll try, anyway!

Maybe at first, but now that DBO is out, and is the official continuation of Dragonball, Majin is now a race.

Wow, great point. That's an incredibly interesting development. Kinda solidifies my personal feelings on using "Saiyajin" and "Majin" at the same time. I honestly don't care one way or the other what anyone else uses (though I care about the pronunciation ^_~)... just seems a little silly to me, especially going forward, for someone to have a problem with "Saiyajin" and personally still use "Majin"...

[Kendamu]

I just don't like saying "Saiya-jin" when speaking English because we have an English word for it: Saiyan. For those who haven't heard me say it, I mean the "sigh" pronunciation, not the "say" one from FUNimation.

"Majin," on the other hand, never had any sort of changes when it came over. It wasn't treated like "Ma Person" in the way that "Saiyan" is like "Saiya Person." Instead, "Majin" was treated like the name of the species like "ningen/human" is.

It's a matter of what I'm accustomed to. I don't care if you do say "Saiya-jin" or even pronounce it like FUNimation does. I just felt like explaining why I'll say "Saiyan" but then I'll turn around and say "Majin."

[fig404]

You just forgot to explain how exactly those were "incorrect"...

I've never heard of the tea referred to as "woolong" tea, however it HAS been pointed out in this topic to be called that occasionally, so I stand corrected. "Pooal" however, feels like it was just following some pseudo-english rule of "use 'oo' wherever there's a long 'u', and replace all 'r's with 'l's".

[VegettoEX]

I just don't like saying "Saiya-jin" when speaking English because we have an English word for it: Saiyan. For those who haven't heard me say it, I mean the "sigh" pronunciation, not the "say" one from FUNimation.

"Majin," on the other hand, never had any sort of changes when it came over. It wasn't treated like "Ma Person" in the way that "Saiyan" is like "Saiya Person." Instead, "Majin" was treated like the name of the species like "ningen/human" is.

It's a matter of what I'm accustomed to. I don't care if you do say "Saiya-jin" or even pronounce it like FUNimation does. I just felt like explaining why I'll say "Saiyan" but then I'll turn around and say "Majin."

Stemming off of your points and personal feelings, I will toss out there that "Saiyan" has been the de-facto standard on Japanese merchandise as long as I can remember. That's not to say they never used "Saiya-jin" -- I just saw it on some Super Famicom stuff recently.

(Of course, there's still that pronunciation issue )

Interesting that "Saiyajin" was adapted by the Japanese into "Saiyan", and "Namekkuseijin" was adapted into some variation on "Namekian/Nameccian", but "Majin" always remains as-is. I'm still unbelievably intrigued by this foray into DragonBall Online with it truly being its own pure-blooded, birthed-into race, now. I wonder if it had been seen that way from the get-go, would it have been adapted into something else...? "Man" (or "Ma-n") sure wouldn't have worked... Hoffmann's "Magical Being" suffices, but goes against the "short" standard most of us seem to try and shoot for...

I guess I'm just tossing out ideas and hypotheticals more than anything else. Forget about arguments and persuasive essays... this is what intrigues me the most!

[DNA]

I guess Maian also wouldn't work.

[Xyex]

I guess Maian also wouldn't work.

Definitely better than Man, that's for sure. Man opens up a whooooooole other can of worms and would likely confuse a lot of people. Obviously -ese and -tian, the other two common 'enders' for this sort of thing, wouldn't work. "Maese" and "Matian" don't look or sound good. They'd be incorrect, anyway, I believe. I think -tian is only for words ending in S and -ese for words ending in N (-ian might be for N ending words as well, I can't remember).

I suppose, if you ignore the actual Japanese grammar involved, that "Majinese" could be considered applicable. You'd have to include the "jin" as part of the full word as opposed to being a suffix like with Saiya-jin. The fact I tend to see Saiya-jin written out with the dash usually, while Majin is almost exclusively without it, could even lend credence to the presentation of "Majin" being a compounded word and not word-suffix pair.

Though "Majinese" sounds more like a language than a people.

[Kendamu]

Well, the current English use of "Majin" already ignores Japanese grammar and works just fine. So, there's no need to add any suffix to it. Of course, I fall more into the "descriptive" camp than the "prescriptive" camp when it comes to the linguistics of Dragonball names and terms, so I wouldn't really want to change it, anyway. Otherwise, I'd cringe at the sound of "Vegetto" because it doesn't make sense ing English like "Vegerot" does.

[Godo]

In the Swedish manga, we have the following names:

Swedish [Funimation/Viz]

Kuririn [Krillin]
Son-Goku (later only Goku)
Son-Gohan (later only Gohan)
Tienshinhan [Tiien]
Puar [Pool]
Bulma
Tranornas herre (lord of the Cranes [Crane Hermit])
Kame-Sennin [Master Roshi]
Yamchu [Yamcha]
Demonen Boo (Buu the demon [Majin Buu])
Vegeta [Majin Vegeta]
Saiya-jin [Saiyan]
Namekian [Namekian]
Vegetto [Vegetto/Vegerot]
Mäster Kaio (Master Kaio [King Kai])

I am happy that we got fed with kinda accurate names in the Swedish manga. But as an outsider I say: Who cares? As long as we understand eachother.

Oh, and also:

Radditz [Tullece] (In movie 3)

[Khalid Shahin]

and as for "Kami" (and I really really don't like calling him that, it just reeks of censorship)... if you were to translate a German novel where God played a part, would you keep him as "Gott" or properly translate it as "God"? I know what I would do.

God, Allah, Gott all refer to a monotheistic god. Kami on the other hand is a god among gods, where he is the god for Earth. Sure the reasoning behind not translating it was probably censorship, but it works anyways and I don't thunk many people are complaining since they didn't translate it to something... Except for Guardian of Earth sometimes, which you can argue as unacceptable translation. I believe it is better to leave Kami untranslated just not to confuse people too much, but it still wouldn't make that scene where Goku said he trained with God as significant as it should be by leaving it as Kami for an English speaking audience.

[Herms]

The biggest example I know of "Trunks" being an official spelling of his name is in the DBZ "Legends" manual. I scanned mine a long time ago, but can't find the files. But in there, several main characters all have katakana/kanji spellings, while Trunks is specifically "TRUNKS" in this. It's such a sore thumb, and I've always thought it was hilarious. If anyone can post a scan of it, please do! If not, I'll try and take a picture tomorrow.

The reason behind that is that many of those old games would have future Trunks' name written in roman letters to distinguish him from kid Trunks, whose name would be written in katakana.

[Adamant]

God, Allah, Gott all refer to a monotheistic god. Kami on the other hand is a god among gods, where he is the god for Earth. Sure the reasoning behind not translating it was probably censorship, but it works anyways and I don't thunk many people are complaining since they didn't translate it to something... I believe it is better to leave Kami untranslated just not to confuse people too much.

So, if this hypothetical German novel had "Gott" as the god of Earth, and there were shown to be several more gods out in the universe, would you then keep him as "Gott" in your English translation "because he's not what we refer to as God"?

[Rocketman]

So, if this hypothetical German novel had "Gott" as the god of Earth, and there were shown to be several more gods out in the universe, would you then keep him as "Gott" in your English translation "because he's not what we refer to as God"?

Polytheistic worlds don't tend to call one of the gods simply 'God'. Bad writing there.