How is Kinto'un written and pronounced?

[Cure Dragon 255]

I know I probably just did it correctly but I am not sure! Please bless me with your KNOWLEDGE OF DRAGON BALL!

[KBABZ]

Listen to the Son Goku song until he gets to the verse where he sings about it!

Basically, there's less of a "hiccup" caused by the apostrophe than there appears to be. I don't know why the apostrophe is there, but it's helpful in explaining the pronounciation: it's not "Kin-town" (like "town square" or "your car's town"), but more "Kinto oon". At least, that's how Goku pronounces it in the song.

[Cure Dragon 255]

I think its there so that you KNOW the U is pronounced. Many words have an u in them that is NOT supposed to be pronounced.

[VegettoEX]

The apostrophe is used in transliterations like this to indicate a distinct break between syllables.

Ignore Kinto-un for a second, and think about: Tenkaichi Budoukai. There's that long "o" sound in there, which we indicate with a macron as " ō", so now you have "Tenkaichi Budōkai" (different transliteration systems can give you either "oo" or "ou", too, which are both right). Thing is, when you look at that by itself in a vacuum... just what exactly is "Tenkaichi"? Is it "Ten-ka-ichi" or "Ten-kai-chi"? If you know the meaning behind it (and especially if you can see what the kanji are) you might be able to figure it out: it's "Ten-ka-ichi" (天下一 or "number one under heaven"). We place that apostrophe in there to indicate that, as "Tenka'ichi". This way, you DON'T inadvertently say "Ten-kai-chi" (which is just objectively incorrect here).



Same goes for "Kinto'un" or "Kinto-un". I'll admit I don't know the various transliteration systems' preferred punctuation to indicate it, and if there's anything different coming from Chinese versus Japanese, but the apostrophe versus hyphen is effectively the same thing there. Placing it there helps indicate to the reader that it's not a long "o" sound like in "Budoukai", but two separate sounds, with three kanji with intended Japanese readings of "kin" and "to" and "un".



(It actually comes straight from "Journey to the West" in Chinese there as 筋斗雲 where it's Wukong's "cloud somersault" technique that allows him to leap and travel far distances.)

[KBABZ]

My preferred layout is apostrophe for the cloud and a hyphen for the stick.

[Zestanor]

Ignore Kinto-un for a second, and think about: Tenkaichi Budoukai. There's that long "o" sound in there, which we indicate with a macron as " ō", so now you have "Tenkaichi Budōkai" (different transliteration systems can give you either "oo" or "ou", too, which are both right).

As an aside, I think “budookai” would be more or less wrong? Or at least, it would both be confusing to most readers, and it unnecessarily garbles etymological information. “Ou” not because it’s a dipthong (it’s not) but because of the kana. Ō = oo おお comes from native Japanese words that historically were spelled “owo” おを or “oho,” おほ while ō = ou おうis most often from Chinese reading words.

Anyway, “o’u” only seems to be a transliteration used in compound words. If it were used totally consistently, you’d see “omo’u” for “to think,” but I have never seen that.

Here’s a new question: Goku seemed to like to yell out “Kintoooi Un” or “Kintonnn Un” or something. Was this just his dialect?

[MyVisionity]

Ignore Kinto-un for a second, and think about: Tenkaichi Budoukai. There's that long "o" sound in there, which we indicate with a macron as " ō", so now you have "Tenkaichi Budōkai" (different transliteration systems can give you either "oo" or "ou", too, which are both right).

As an aside, I think “budookai” would be more or less wrong? Or at least, it would both be confusing to most readers, and it unnecessarily garbles etymological information. “Ou” not because it’s a dipthong (it’s not) but because of the kana. Ō = oo おお comes from native Japanese words that historically were spelled “owo” おを or “oho,” おほ while ō = ou おうis most often from Chinese reading words.

I think he just meant that ō with the macron is used to represent either oo or ou sounds. There's no such thing as "doo" as far as I know.

Here’s a new question: Goku seemed to like to yell out “Kintoooi Un” or “Kintonnn Un” or something. Was this just his dialect?

I have never heard Goku yell anything like that.

[Zestanor]

Depending on where 通り shows up in a word, you can canget “doo.”

Or maybe he’s yelling “Kinto-Un yooooo!” ? That crummy muffled audio!

[Adamant]

As an aside, I think “budookai” would be more or less wrong? Or at least, it would both be confusing to most readers, and it unnecessarily garbles etymological information. “Ou” not because it’s a dipthong (it’s not) but because of the kana. Ō = oo おお comes from native Japanese words that historically were spelled “owo” おを or “oho,” おほ while ō = ou おうis most often from Chinese reading words.

There's several systems of romanization that romanizes おう as "oo" when it represents a long o. It's not really any different from writing ō to represent the sound, both involve basing your romanization on the actual sound being made instead of strictly adhering to how it's written.

Here’s a new question: Goku seemed to like to yell out “Kintoooi Un” or “Kintonnn Un” or something. Was this just his dialect?

It's "Kintoun yoi", so that's just you mishearing.

[Fernandez]

(It actually comes straight from "Journey to the West" in Chinese there as 筋斗雲 where it's Wukong's "cloud somersault" technique that allows him to leap and travel far distances.)

Interesting. So the Japanese 筋斗雲 (Kinto'un) is originally from the Chinese 筋斗雲 (Jīndǒu yún). The German translation Jindujun suddenly makes much more sense.