#Linguistic Loss

[xxscarletxrosexx]

A Linguistic Analysis: Manga Translation (EN/JP/TWN) Comparison of Chapter 90.1 | Part 3

This is written in response to @connoisseursdecomfort's post Comparing Versions of Short Mission 11

((I realized that I should have just made this into a post because my response would be lost as a reblog. And it did... OTL

Also, this is an updated version with more insight/details))

Consider this is as a part 3 of my Linguistic Analysis posts on Spy x Family's Ch. 90.1 or Short Mission 11.

Part 1: A Linguistic Analysis of the Spelling "Ania" and "Anya"...

Part 2: "Ania" is the closest to an identity reveal

This analysis contains spoilers from Chapter 90.1 / Short Mission 11!

What's so interesting about the discourse analysis amongst Japanese, Taiwanese, and English translations is the hedging (word choices that lessen the directness of a dialogue) langauge that Loid uses. It is more clear in the Japanese ("by the way") and Taiwanese ("it came to mind") translations. Whereas, English's hedging is found in "...right?" What the three of them do share in common is that Loid's discourse is pointing to active voice by stating "your name is spelled A-N-Y-A". Apply all of these translations below:

(ENG) Your name is spelled A-N-Y-A, right?

(JP) By the way, your name is spelled A-N-Y-A.

(TW) It came to mind, your name is spelled A-N-Y-A.

It is consistent that Loid's tone is holding authority by demonstrating his knowledge on Ostanian orthography based off the transcriptions he's seen of Anya's name registered as "A-N-Y-A" which was spelled by her previous Ostanian adopted parents. So Twilight feels confident that the spelling of her name MUST be "Anya."

Another thing I wanted to add on to @connoisseursdecomfort's observation is catching loss of translation, which is so unfortunately common. English translation omits translations mainly because some expressions or dialogue that are common in a language (Japanese and Taiwanese) would be perceive differently in English-speaking countries (USA, UK, AUS, CAN, etc.). This is called cultural discount.

It's the reason why Squid Game English dub missed out on many jokes that are play on words in the Korean dub. It is also the reason why a lot of American jokes are not understood by non-English speakers OTL

But this is a general phenomenon because English native consumers would find the expression strange simply because we do not have this style reflected in our discourse. The best example is when @_mika60 translated the omitted text "Anya's heart stirred at the mention of her own name."

To an American (possibly English natives in general, but I can't really speak on behalf of British, Canadians, nor Australians beause their English may be slightly different in terms of cultural lifestyle/upbringing), this expression can be perceived as corny/purple-prosey. Because American discourse don't generally have this emotionally-charged reflective discourse. Hence, omitted. Which is unfortunate because it says so much about how Loid's spelling affected Anya's feelings. So this is a perfect example of cultural discount.

An example of loss in translation is the omission of Anya's text which explains why she can't carve out her name is due to feeling insecure about her bad handwriting. (Again, this is character analysis that English-reading consumers missed out on! Because anything written in the manga is deemed canon.) Whereas English, we completely omit that detail because English native speakers don't need that extra dialogue. The English discourse is typically straight to the point and English native consumers draw inferences from icons (images/illustrations).

Based off my explanation, this is how I see the above picture as an American consumer (using a think-aloud method):

Anya says, "I can't do it right..." and she looks frustrated as illustrated by the swirl above her head.

Her brows are furrowed which supports that she's annoyed/frustrated/angry.

Her cheeks... are they blushes? Is she embarrassed? I can't really tell.

She's also a 4 y/o or was it 5 y/o child (she lied being 6, right?) so it's obvious she probably might be annoyed because she can't draw straight lines.

Because she's an infant, I'm sure she doesn't have the strength to draw clean lines.

Based off my thought process above, do I think OR am I convinced that Anya feels insecure? No.

Can it be argued that she's insecure? Yes, absolutely.

If I were to talk to someone who posits Anya may be insecure because of his/her knowledge of children behavior and/or mannerism, then I would be convinced. However, I would arrive to this assimilation through negotiating observations and exchanging knowledge of children behavioral mannerism. However, this would become more of headcanon if it wasn't explicitly stated in the manga (keep it mind that the Japanese translation DOES explicitly state that she's insecure because of her bad handwriting, so yes, it is canon that Anya is insecure of her bad handwriting).

Anyways...

I love translation comparisons mainly because you get to experience cultural exchange if you are fortunate enough to understand or have access to a translator (*cough* @connoisseursdecomfort *cough*) who enjoys comparing multiple languages. Thank you for doing God's work @connoisseursdecomfort <3

[linguistwho]

Phonetic Gallifreyan Weekend - Sentence 35:

"Harry Sullivan is an imbicile!" - The Doctor

[theinkedfoxsl]

how do you...

would it be 廖 静 ???

how is this written... I AM EXPLAINED THIS EVERY FUCKING TIME.

[fuckboy-loki]

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater (ch 37) // Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (ch 2)

(Quote text under read more)

Henry had never been good with words. Case in point: The first month he'd been at Aglionby, he had tried to explain this to Jonah Milo, the English teacher, and had been told that he was being hard on himself. You've got a great vocabulary, Milo had said. Henry was aware he had a great vocabulary. It was not the same thing as having the words you needed to express yourself. You're very well-spoken for a kid your age, Mino had added. Hell, ha, even for a guy my age. But sounding like you were saying what you felt was not the same as actually pulling it off. A lot of ESL folks feel that way, Milo had finished. My mom said she was never herself in English. But it wasn't that Henry was less of himself in English. He was less of himself out loud. His native language was thought.

His mother was the only one who knew what Henry meant when he said that he wasn't good with words. She was always trying to explain things to his father, especially when she had decided to become Seondeok instead of his wife. It is that, she forever said, but also something more. The phrase had come to live in Henry's head. Something more explained perfectly why he could never say what he meant — something more, by its definition, would always be different than what you already had in your hand.

— — —

"I can never say what I want to say," continued Naoko. "It's been like this for a while now. I try to say something, but all I get are the wrong words - the wrong words or the exact opposite words from what I mean. I try to correct myself, and that only makes it worse. I lose track of what I was trying to say to begin with. It's like I'm split in two and playing tag with myself. One half is chasing the other half around this big, fat post. The other me has the right words, but this me can't catch her." She raised her face and looked into my eyes. "Does this make any sense to you?" "Everybody feels like that to some extent," I said. "They're trying to express themselves and it bothers then when they can't get it right." Naoko looked disappointed with my answer. "No, that's not it either," she said without further explanation.

[bookwyrminspiration]

and also :0 what languages do you know?? wishing you luck in learning more of the/more languages!! may we become even more multilingual than before

I love talking about languages!! My dad and I are both huge language people

Quite obviously, I'm fluent in English. I have functional fluency in Spanish (took the official test for it, but my Spanish is by no means perfect) and a 2 year degree in Modern Languages with a concentration in Spanish. I can also passably communicate in ASL--I was literally one class away from finishing my ASL 2 year degree and then they cancelled the class, and am now unable to finish it. My ASL is also imperfect, but I can hold basic conversations and tell stories and such. I did also study french for 2 semesters (required for my Spanish degree), but I didn't retain like any of it.

I'd like to revisit French one day, and I'm interested in Nahuatl as well. And Persian, because I grew up Baha'i and surrounded by the language but picked up none of it. There's like a million languages I want to know I can't list them all. Slightly related, knowing morse code and braille would be lovely. I just think languages are so neat!!

here's to us becoming more and more multilingual than before!! I wish you luck with all your languages too <3

[ippokampos]

language attrition is crazy and it rips my heart. a year and a half ago i was able to read a whole book in italian and understand more than 90% of it. and now im so scared of opening those same books i read cause i know im going to have a hard time with the voc. i could carry out a casual convo just fine and now i feel like im going to shit my pants if sb asks me what my fav food is

[procrastinatorproject]

It is done!

So... I was thinking of making these all chapters of a larger fic. The Soji portion was a little over 1.5k words, the Raffi part was just over 3k. The Rios "chapter" is finished as a first draft and is currently at 6.627 words. ... I have a problem, people 🙈

(And the Soji one is at least as good as the others. It's just... so difficult not to indulge. But then again, I'm not writing these things fro the dense plotting... Ah well. We'll see what eventually ends up on AO3. But for now: here is a snip*!)

*(unsurprisingly, it's much too long to realistically call a "snippet")

---

Rios’s voice was a perfect imitation of Steward’s Southern Drawl, and Emil nearly gasped.

But the captain wasn’t done. When he spoke again, he was using a lilting accent that the EMH couldn’t place. “It’s like this, see, these programmers know where’n get the bestest voices. They’re smarter-er than youse would ever think. Or mays-be youse are just über-dim…”

Once again, and against his will, Emil burst out laughing. “What was that?”

Rios grinned. “Sixteen-year-old Tellarite. Or the equivalent age for their species, anyway. Teenagers. The UT had one hell of a time trying to translate their speech patterns. We tried to learn some of their expressions, but they informed us we were ‘depleted’, which I think means ‘embarrassing?’”

Emil shook his head. “When did you have a chance to observe Tellarite teenagers? I understand they don’t often leave Tellar before they come of age?”

“Oh, we were shuttling them around on a school trip. Some big interstellar youth debate competition — which they won, of course. Wiped the floor with the Klingon delegation; it was brutal.” Rios smiled at the memory. “They gloated the entire week-long trip back home and decided that newly-minted Starfleet officers were a worthy substitute target for practice. So we had plenty of time listening to them as they grilled us on the finer points of UFP diplomacy protocols. According to Vaasiir chim Ners, we’re all a disgrace to the uniform and should be retroactively failed for our Academy finals.” Rios’s smile started to fade as his eyes became unfocused, looking into the middle distance.

“Captain?” the EMH asked and reached out to touch Rios’s shoulder.

The captain shuddered at the touch, but he focused his attention back on Emil. His smile turned rueful as he said: “Sorry, I just… I guess I just realized she must be an adult by now… I wonder what became of her. And the rest of them…”

Emil was sure Rios was not just referring to the teenage Tellarites, but he could also see all the signs of rapidly growing exhaustion on the captain’s face. Probably best not to let him dwell on these particular questions.

He squeezed Rios’s shoulder and gave him an encouraging smile. “Wherever Ms chim Ners is now, I’m sure she’d be delighted to have left such a lasting impression. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to listen to Ian talk about ‘depleted’ plasma reserves with a straight face again.” Emil tried to imitate the way the captain had said the word, and Rios actually smiled even if there was still a wistfulness to it.

“That pronunciation was awful,” he said. “Don’t ever try to use it with a Tellarite teenager. They’ll mock you so fiercly over it, you’ll never be able to scrub it from your memory files.”

“At least I don’t sound like some ‘über-dim’ debate nerd.” Even as he said it, Emil could tell his accent on the slang term sounded nothing like it was supposed to.

Now, Rios was the one startled into a burst of laughter. “How are you so bad at this? We have the same voice, couldn’t you just copy the way I said it?”

Emil crossed his arms, suddenly feeling rather defensive. “I’m so sorry, I would allocate more of my processing to linguistic shenanigans, but unfortunately it’s bound up in all this pesky medical functionality. You know. Useless things like ‘how to keep your captain from dying of asphyxiation’ and ‘you should not tie your patient to the biobed no matter how many times they try to get up even though you told them not to’.”

“It’s okay,” Rios grinned and then continued in a pitch-perfect imitation of Emil’s own, crisp English accent: “We wouldn’t want you to overtax your fragile algorithms.”

For half a second, they both stared at each other, then, as one, they started laughing. Suddenly, their was barely any difference left between their voices.

[mickeys-malarkey]

So, I was watching a conlang advice series and the guy was saying that if your first language is English and you wanna use glottal stops you should probably stick to putting them in the middle of words between vowels because that's pretty much the only time English uses them and I was like “yeah okay” until I started paying attention and realized that I think I pretty much put glottal stops at the beginning of any word that starts with a vowel (especially at the beginning of sentences, after pauses, etc.) and I was like “huh… So, that's not a normal English speaker thing? Weird, wonder why I do that.” Then later I was watching a video on public speakers/actors/etc. using ejective Ks by this guy who's an accent coach if I remember correctly and he was saying that it's often in preparation for putting a glottal stop at the beginning of a word that starts with a vowel so that listeners can hear it clearer and I was just like “…ohhh… I do it to compensate for my hearing disorders, don't I?” 😝🤯

[alpineig]

the start if an English logographic system. we should continue this until every concept has an image and that's our writing system. would fix English orthography

I'm at a :.|:; for words.

[newtscamandersbf]

saw someone saying its weird for a 17 yo to be hanging out w a 14 yo .. idk not really. like i dont think thatd be weird but maybe thats just me not being american. maybe thats just me havibg a 19 yo classmate who i hang out w ?? maybe thats just me havibg a 13 yo friend while being 16. maybe thats just me not giving a fuck if a 14 year old is friends w a 17 yo cause thats two lil kids / teens & people being adults at 18 is bullshit ?? 😭 like to me youre not an adult until youre 20 / 21 idc

[angealainn]

Hey language tumblr I have a question about Japanese.

So I’m trying to write a story where the protagonist has a sword technique called Shinrabanshō (森羅万象, translated usually as “all things in nature” or “the universe”), where the user draws the sword and performs a singular, perfect slash (standard weeb shit).

I want it to have a sister technique, also named with a yojijukugo, that has a meaning like “all that remains” or “nihility” or some other vaguely antonymous sentiment. I’ve looked through a few online dictionaries and can’t really find anything, so I’m outsourcing the problem. If anyone has something to help with this admittedly rather dumb idea, please reblog/reply.

[nogoodnikolai]

What's everyone's favorite false etymology? I'm partial to crapper being derived from Thomas Crapper (who, incidentally, did not invent the flush toilet, he just owned a plumbing company). It's stretching the definition of etymology, but I was told as a kid that the "she shells seashells" tongue-twister was about Mary Anning, a 19th century paleontologist who made a living collecting and selling fossils she found on beaches.

[hyper-lynx]

For other words, maybe the panels of Loss could be used individually like

|'|: Person/Self/Thing

|' '| : Direction/Knowledge

|, ,| : Discussion/Group/Pair

|, _| : Event/Seeing/Death

We can combine these. For example, a wise person might be

|' '|'|

Let's construct "I learned what happened"

|○_ ' ,'|, ',]', '_|

Literally, this is "I gained event knowledge"

As for other nouns, I suggest chaining using special demarcation like this

|'$| : Money Thing (Using the marker from above)

To define a marker as referring to something, I propose this syntax:

|%'| (other phrase) : % is a thing that means (other phrase)

For example, if we wanted to define, say, Gatorade as a noun and use it in a sentence, we could write the following (if we allow English word insertion to define things)

|G'|"Gatorade" : G means Gatorade

|○_' ,' |, ,'$] |○○', ,| ', '_|_' ,' |, ,'|~]G| : get paid, get laid, Gaotrade.

We could invent a loss based wiriting system

[kitsunabi]

Qingque's VO lines have so many puns and almost none get translated over well and it kills me, her lines are the best OTL

[juice-and-catharsis]

There is a worm in my brain and his name is Hozier

[abboudi47]