"Saiya People" is actually more accurate than Saiyans (not really)

[Bansho64]

To be fair, the pun is lost anyway. You'd have to do something like "Vegetians".

True, I can concede to that. "Vegetians" does sound pretty funny though That sounds like something TFS might make a joke out of. Oh mystical KaiserNeko, where are you when we need you......

[nite_jay]

To be fair, the pun is lost anyway. You'd have to do something like "Vegetians".

True, I can concede to that. "Vegetians" does sound pretty funny though That sounds like something TFS might make a joke out of. Oh mystical KaiserNeko, where are you when we need you......

Now I'm just thinking of all of the localized puns they could have made. Dairy Force, perhaps?

[Anime Kitten]

No immediate examples other than Goku and video games. And even Super. "Sūpā Saiyajin Goddo" (hope that's spelled right), the phrase they used over and over in the Battle of Gods Arc, seems to be pronounced "Say", from what I remember.

[Esfír Dedragón]

I'm not much of a stickler when it comes to pronunciation. It's close enough. I tend to view it more of a Japanese word translated into an American-accented, English word.

Anyway, I remember years ago reading a YouTube comment about how "Saiyanese" is another legitimate way of translating it.

[RedRibbonSoldier#42]

No immediate examples other than Goku and video games. And even Super. "Sūpā Saiyajin Goddo" (hope that's spelled right), the phrase they used over and over in the Battle of Gods Arc, seems to be pronounced "Say", from what I remember.

You must be remembering wrong. There's no way for the letters サイ to be pronounced like "say".

[RedRibbonSoldier#42]

...I tend to view it more of a Japanese word translated into an American-accented, English word.

Anyway, I remember years ago reading a YouTube comment about how "Saiyanese" is another legitimate way of translating it.

This is the one argument I find the most baffling. It's true that words change to fit native phonologists, but /sa/, /i/, /ya/ and /n/ are already in English words. "Say-un" is no more American.

And Saiyanese might work theoretically, but is just a slight sound shift away from "Siamese"

[Esfír Dedragón]

...I tend to view it more of a Japanese word translated into an American-accented, English word.

Anyway, I remember years ago reading a YouTube comment about how "Saiyanese" is another legitimate way of translating it.

This is the one argument I find the most baffling. It's true that words change to fit native phonologists, but /sa/, /i/, /ya/ and /n/ are already in English words. "Say-un" is no more American.

And Saiyanese might work theoretically, but is just a slight sound shift away from "Siamese"

Rain, Pain, Gain, Train, Cain, Main.

Those are some examples of how some diphthongs in English are never pronounced as they are written. I've always noted this weird detail since I'm billingual in at least one other language in which vowels are pronounced as is.

[RedRibbonSoldier#42]

...I tend to view it more of a Japanese word translated into an American-accented, English word.

Anyway, I remember years ago reading a YouTube comment about how "Saiyanese" is another legitimate way of translating it.

This is the one argument I find the most baffling. It's true that words change to fit native phonologists, but /sa/, /i/, /ya/ and /n/ are already in English words. "Say-un" is no more American.

And Saiyanese might work theoretically, but is just a slight sound shift away from "Siamese"

Rain, Pain, Gain, Train, Cain, Main.

Those are some examples of how some diphthongs in English are never pronounced as they are written. I've always noted this weird detail since I'm billingual in at least one other language in which vowels are pronounced as is.

English has the least phonetic phonetic writing system in the word. Nothing is read as written.
Out of curiosity, what else do you speak?

[Esfír Dedragón]

This is the one argument I find the most baffling. It's true that words change to fit native phonologists, but /sa/, /i/, /ya/ and /n/ are already in English words. "Say-un" is no more American.

And Saiyanese might work theoretically, but is just a slight sound shift away from "Siamese"

Rain, Pain, Gain, Train, Cain, Main.

Those are some examples of how some diphthongs in English are never pronounced as they are written. I've always noted this weird detail since I'm billingual in at least one other language in which vowels are pronounced as is.

English has the least phonetic phonetic writing system in the word. Nothing is read as written.
Out of curiosity, what else do you speak?

I can also speak Spanish.

[Nejishiki]

The names puns Toriyama created are not supposed to be the exact Japanese or transliterated English words. They're usually twisted to make existing words become new terms. So, I have to heavily disagree with, "Vegetians", being an accurate translation as that was never the intention of its word formation in Japanese. Now, is the anagram lost on foreign translations? Yes. You can't base your translation by breaking apart the joke into something entirely new though.

[dbgtFO]

The -an suffix is far from the only way to go, I mean we can't forget about how things are in the country of DB's origin.
Someone from Japan(Nihon-jin) is not called "a Japanian" afterall, rather we say "a Japanese person."
Likewise a Saiya-jin could also be called "a Saiyanese person."
I also like the term "Saiyaman" from Gohan's Great Saiyaman moniker.

[nite_jay]

Hopefully this is still on topic, but does anybody else think ot would be cool if a dub were to use directly translated names for the attacks? I mean wouldn't it be cool to change things like "Kaioken" to "God Fist". It could also reverse things like "Big Bang Attack" that were natively English into it's Japanese equivalent. I know we'd end up with abominations like calling the "Kamehameha" 'Turtle Destruction Wave' all the time, but I still find the prospect interesting.

[RedRibbonSoldier#42]

Hopefully this is still on topic, but does anybody else think ot would be cool if a dub were to use directly translated names for the attacks? I mean wouldn't it be cool to change things like "Kaioken" to "God Fist". It could also reverse things like "Big Bang Attack" that were natively English into it's Japanese equivalent. I know we'd end up with abominations like calling the "Kamehameha" 'Turtle Destruction Wave' all the time, but I still find the prospect interesting.

Since the kamehameha is used with dramatic build up by yelling each syllable slowly, it'd be tough to change. Besides, the name is just a bunch of sounds except for the 波 part; there's nothing to translate.

[Nejishiki]

Well, I don't think the universal five-syllable mouth movement would flow too well using strictly, "Turtle Destruction Wave", but some attack names using some natural-sounding English adaptions would be nice. Piccolo's nods towards the Mazoku clan deserve to be highlighted in any dubbing. It really depends on who's doing it and how consistent they're willing to be with the practice. It takes you out of the experience if they skip out on one term or fail to translate it completely.

[UltimateHammerBro]

I don't see how "Saiya People" is any more accurate than "Saiyans", as the two convey the exact same idea: the people of Saiya.

But there is nothing called "Saiya" in the series. We're humans, not the people from Huma.

Anyway, I remember years ago reading a YouTube comment about how "Saiyanese" is another legitimate way of translating it.

Sounds legitimate, but I can't help but think that it sounds more like the language they'd speak Maybe it's its similarity with Shanghainese?

Well, I don't think the universal five-syllable mouth movement would flow too well using strictly, "Turtle Destruction Wave", but some attack names using some natural-sounding English adaptions would be nice. Piccolo's nods towards the Mazoku clan deserve to be highlighted in any dubbing. It really depends on who's doing it and how consistent they're willing to be with the practice. It takes you out of the experience if they skip out on one term or fail to translate it completely.

How about "Turtle Blasting Wave"? It just came to my mind

[Puto]

The western idea that the 'hame' in 'Kamehame-ha' stands for 'hametsu'/destruction isn't really supported by anything over in Japan. It's more likely that it's just random gibberish from punning 'kame' (turtle) with 'ha' (wave).

[UltimateHammerBro]

The western idea that the 'hame' in 'Kamehame-ha' stands for 'hametsu'/destruction isn't really supported by anything over in Japan. It's more likely that it's just random gibberish from punning 'kame' (turtle) with 'ha' (wave).

"Turtle Purple Wave", then? It's actually blue, but both colors seem to be synonyms in the Dragon World

[MetaMoss]

I don't see how "Saiya People" is any more accurate than "Saiyans", as the two convey the exact same idea: the people of Saiya.

But there is nothing called "Saiya" in the series. We're humans, not the people from Huma.

That's a good point. So "Saiya People" has even less of a leg to stand on, then.

[nite_jay]

Maybe it could just be called "Explosive Turtle Wave". Now that I think about it though, its really hard to imagine Goku saying anything else but Kamehameha when he does it.

[Deathbringer]

Translating Saiya-jin as Saiya People isn't an accurate translation, it's a literal translation. When you want to translate something you're trying to convey what the source is saying but not word for word because then it doesn't make sense and is therefore inaccurate.

(Also wouldn't they have to be "Tablevegians" because Saiya is taken from Yasai?)