#i made this meme with the chinese honorific first

[paradoxspaceheater]

she’s onto you bro

(chinese dub version/japanese dub version)

[fineillsignup]

Bit of a weird question, but how do translators decide which terms to fully translate and which to romanticize? Like the difference between Akatsuki and Red Dawn? Thanks

I love these kinds of questions.

(First off, just a pedant thing because I cannot stop myself from correcting people and ruining friendships, 曉 akatsuki just means “dawn”, not “red dawn”. Also the word is “romanize” not “romanticize”.)

Ok so now the matter of choice. There are several angles to approach this question from.

First, cross-language interaction and communication is inseparable from larger issues of cultural exchange and principles of same. If you look over history, throughout most of history in Europe and East Asia (my knowledge of other areas is more limited, but I believe the pattern holds), cross-cultural communications of all kinds tended to be self-centric.

What I mean is that the names by which peoples called other peoples, other nations, other locations, etc etc, were not concerned with being accurate to the other peoples’ usage, and that’s being charitable. In fact, names for foreign places and peoples are very frequently deliberately offensive.

Hi China, said Japan. Hi dipshit, said China. Could you call us something else, other than dipshit, said Japan? - Bill Wurtz

Or when they do make an attempt to go off of what the foreign people are saying, they pronounce it according to local language rules. For example up until relatively recently, all across Europe everyone pronounced Latin according to their own language’s pronunciation. If /c/ is pronounced with a soft [s], that’s how they’d say it, or if it’s pronounced with a hard [k], etc. That’s how you get English Caesar versus German Kaiser for example. Or they may otherwise adjust the terms. In England they say Spain and in España they say Inglaterra. And this went so far as to also include individual people’s names. When you read European history in English, the names of rulers, for example, are usually given in their English equivalents: Francis, not Franz or Francisco; Joan, not Jeanne or Giovanna.

Lately (like within the past century-ish), the movement has gradually turned towards verbatim (or as close as possible) reproduction of the foreign people’s terminology for the names of places, peoples, and individual persons. This is inseparable from larger issues of anti-colonization; new principles of equity of peoples, nations, and states; and respect for self-determination.

This might seem like a bit of detour from the topic but I don’t think it is, because to a large extent what this is about is localization vs preservation. These two principles are not precisely opposites but they can often be considered on a scale. And the individual translator’s choices are never made in a vacuum.

Another angle is preservation of foreign terms verbatim is often, though I don’t think usually intentionally, a kind of class or insider signifier. This is more clearly seen historically in how middle and upper classes will use terms from the most prestigious language to show their class and education. In England this was French. Across the world nowadays, it is English.

Japanese has a similar prestige in the Japanese pop culture subculture. I have previously spoken approvingly of transliterating Japanese honorifics, so I’m not by any means opposed to transliteration, but I think it’s important to be aware of what the full implications of using a transliteration “just because you can” are. Do I really think a transliteration does a better job of communicating, or am I just trying to show off that I know the source term, or am I even obfuscating the meaning to keep it understandable only by those who are already in the subculture? (Did I use the relatively obscure word ‘obfuscate’ just now because it’s the best verb for the meaning I want to express, or because I’m obnoxious? Baby it’s a two for one deal.)

(Tangent: meme references can also be seen as a kind of insider signifier in this sense. If I say “using transliteration is all according to keikaku,” and you recognize the reference, and you get that teeny warm glow of amusement, where does that little positive feeling come from? Of course, part of the amusement is remembering the absurdity of the original incident, but there is also a pleasure in being affirmed as in the loop.)

Okay, anyone still with me? Back to Naruto.

So, in modern prevailing culture, most proper nouns from foreign sources are transliterated (romanized). A problem arises when the literal meaning of a foreign word that is conventionally transliterated is thematically or narratively important.

Use of parenthetical glosses and translator’s notes is ancient and very common, from “Golgotha, or the place of the skull” in the Bible to “that too is my nindo, my ninja way” in the official Naruto anime dub.

Another important principle in translating that frequently sways me as a translator of Chinese to English is this: If it doesn’t sound stupid in the source language, it should not sound stupid in the target language.

For example: English, culturally/historically, while not absolutely excluding literal objects in place and people names, is frequently biased against it. Names in English that are like Rose and Pearl Harbor are the exception, or in some cases a novelty, such as the very recent popularity of first names like Phoenix, Cannon, or Rebel. It’s worth pointing out also that in many cases these kinds of names are popularly perceived as downmarket (even trashy) or amusing. Lists of funny place names are often things like Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania; Possum Grape, Arkansas; and Big Arm, Montana. This is the case even though many “respectable” names have meanings far more ridiculous than these. No one will laugh if you say your name is Philip; people will laugh if you introduce yourself as Horse Lover. Peter sounds much more respectable than Rock. Mary, Miriam, and Maria are all sweet girls names, even though the literal meaning was Bitter!

Naruto is particularly tricky in this regard because many of its original names do sound funny to native speakers but they don’t sound as weird as they do when translated literally. Uzumaki Naruto, for example, could potentially be selectively over-translated into “Whirlpool Whirlpool”, making him the Moon Moon of shounen heroes. At least Naruto is meant to sound funny in the original; Sarutobi Asuma sounds basically normal in Japanese, but True Tomorrow Monkey Jump sounds like word salad.

Then we get into connotations as well. If Neji were translated to Screw, for example, it would have an unfortunate sexual connotation in English that isn’t there, so that’s another factor that can push towards transliteration.

Now in Naruto translations, including official ones, sometimes use a mix of transliterations and translations for place and organization names. Konoha, the Leaf, the Hidden Leaf Village, and Konohagakure, the Village Hidden in the Leaves, these are all commonly used. Frequently the place is called by the transliteration Konoha whereas the organization is called the Leaf. ANBU Black Ops is another mix of transliteration and translation/gloss, and when it’s reduced to just ANBU, it feels right because it sounds like an acronym which culturally in English is how these kinds of organizations are usually known (eg MI5, SEALs, etc).

Choices in translation are as much about communicating the feel of the original as the meaning.

Anyway I’ve hit my time limit and I need to go to Costco now. I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of this topic. Translation is both art and science; it really is a social science, too. This is why machine translation will not replace human translation unless and until AI fully catches up with human sentience.