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MJBurrage
QUOTE (Mesh @ Oct 25 2010, 02:37 AM) *
There is no "toy" sound in Japanese. It is To Yo Ta (rhymes with go no ha). The family's name is Toyoda, same rhyme.
That was my understanding also. I had raised the point as an example where the correct Japanese pronunciation (to-yo-ta) of the company name did not match the common English pronunciation (toy-yoda).

P.S. This was the basis for a real life joke gone bad, where a restaurant held a contest (only described verbally to its waitresses) with a "Toyota" as the prize, but gave the winner a toy Yoda, prompting a successful lawsuit. (Hummer Bummer)

ProfGast
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Oct 18 2010, 07:53 AM) *
Not quite. 幸せ certainly does, but Shiawase the company is named after the founder (presumably 幸福), and so it doesn't really "mean" anything.

Ok this is waaay late response but this is the first time I actually sat down and looked at the kanji/kana you put up. 幸福 Technically speaking DOES mean "Happiness" even if the standard way of writing is 幸せ or just 幸.
It is read as "Shiawase" and at least in CHINESE, xing fu literally means blessings and fortune ---> Happiness. Just for the record grinbig.gif
Mesh
QUOTE (ProfGast @ Oct 26 2010, 12:36 AM) *
Ok this is waaay late response but this is the first time I actually sat down and looked at the kanji/kana you put up. 幸福 Technically speaking DOES mean "Happiness" even if the standard way of writing is 幸せ or just 幸.
It is read as "Shiawase" and at least in CHINESE, xing fu literally means blessings and fortune ---> Happiness. Just for the record grinbig.gif


Both of those kanji mean happy/happiness. According to my wife, there is no family name of Shiawase here.

Mesh

PS We are in Osaka visiting family
and she is honto ni nihonjin.

iPadから送信
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (ProfGast @ Oct 25 2010, 11:36 PM) *
Ok this is waaay late response but this is the first time I actually sat down and looked at the kanji/kana you put up. 幸福 Technically speaking DOES mean "Happiness" even if the standard way of writing is 幸せ or just 幸.
It is read as "Shiawase" and at least in CHINESE, xing fu literally means blessings and fortune ---> Happiness. Just for the record grinbig.gif

It's pronounced こうふく when it means "happiness". Also see the point about how Johnson doesn't mean Son of John.


QUOTE (Mesh @ Oct 26 2010, 12:20 AM) *
According to my wife, there is no family name of Shiawase here.

Your wife appears to be wrong. Not that unusual, I'm an authentic American of English descent and can't necessarily identify whether a given English surname is authentic, but unless your wife has credentials more significant than being Japanese I'm going to have to stick with the name dictionary.

~J
Mesh
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Oct 26 2010, 02:01 AM) *
It's pronounced こうふく when it means "happiness". Also see the point about how Johnson doesn't mean Son of John.



Your wife appears to be wrong. Not that unusual, I'm an authentic American of English descent and can't necessarily identify whether a given English surname is authentic, but unless your wife has credentials more significant than being Japanese I'm going to have to stick with the name dictionary.

~J


She's not American, but she's certainly very stubborn. Can you point me to your reference? She was very certain. Our family name is Akai. Although it shares the kanji for "red", it is just a name and does not mean red. She is familiar with family names that sound like other words so by all means point me to a source that shows her up for me. smile.gif

Mesh
ProfGast
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Oct 25 2010, 08:01 PM) *
It's pronounced こうふく when it means "happiness". Also see the point about how Johnson doesn't mean Son of John.

That's a bit different. English last names and similar are derived, taken, or bastardized. In the US at least, given the bastardization of the language and the Ellis Island syndrome (immigration officials who could not pronounce names as presented would often just 'make up' good ol' american names for the new immigrants) as well as people simply adopting the name from acquaintances (or in the case of former slaves, former owners) the names ARE just identifiers. This does not mean however, that that the NAME Johnson is NOT in fact derived from "Johnsson --> John's Son --> Johan's Son" etc. But at least in english the literal meaning is not necessarily retained.

In chinese and japanese, regardless how a word is read, the meanings for a word are retained. Especially in japanese, where you can say "Shiro" or "Jou", just for example, and still mean castle. Despite the fact that Shiro, depending on how it's said, can also mean "white".
右田 (Migita) still means, literally, "Right, Field" despite also being a standard family name.
前田 (Maeda) still means, literally, "Front, Field" despite also being a standard family name.
一郎 (Ichirou) despite being a very common male name, also does technically mean "first son". Well "One. Son." but still.

I realize in many cases a name will be chosen just because someone "likes the sound" or somesuch. But at least when written out in kanji, it doesn't matter if it's read "kofuku" or "shiawase." The end result is the meaning of the words is still "happiness." That is at least, the translation of the kanji you provided. I will grant, however, that there may well be many many ways to write "Shiawase" as a family name given the inordinately large number of ways that Japanese can read their kanji. Also it's true that a lot of family names don't actually have any meanings now. However since I have not seen the official kanji in any shadowrun reference I'll hold off on figuring out what the name actually means.
Karoline
QUOTE (Adrian Korvedzk @ Oct 25 2010, 01:45 AM) *
For all of its strange intricacies, the language is simplistic in its pronounciation. At least they don't have to deal with "your; you're" "there, their, they're" or "Hoarse, horse, whores" wink.gif

The language is actually fairly 'simplistic' in nearly all respects. The only thing that really makes the language difficult at all is the Kanji. The hirigana/katakana are no different (complexity wise) than upper and lower case letters in English. The language is overall easier to learn because X is always pronounced as X and Y as Y, regardless of where or in what word it appears in. Spelling is therefore easy because everything is spelled exactly like it sounds. Sentence structure isn't all that different from western languages (oddly enough). People always seem to think that Japanese is super difficult to learn, but it really isn't that much harder than any other language.

As for English, I think one word sums it up:
Ghoti (Pronounced fish)
TheScrivener
QUOTE (Karoline @ Oct 26 2010, 08:18 AM) *
As for English, I think one word sums it up:
Ghoti (Pronounced fish)

HA! I'd never read that one before.

Seriously, really good stuff in this conversation.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Karoline @ Oct 26 2010, 08:18 AM) *
Sentence structure isn't all that different from western languages (oddly enough).

That's really not very true—you can sometimes create a similar sentence structure in valid and even not obviously-weird English, but it's pretty different. The most obvious example I can think of is the tendency to push the important things to the end of the sentence—there's a stock situation in dopey romantic scenes where the timid romantic hopeful is confessing to his or her love interest and is interrupted very late in the process, but because of the structure of "[先輩/◯◯君/君]が好き” the part that is new information ("like") can be lost even if only the last mora doesn't get out. This really can't be preserved in translation; the line needs to get interrupted right away or else you need to invoke some kind of even-more-massive blindness on the part of the listener. Or consider a phrase like "醜い私"—we just don't use structures like like "the hateful [more literally: unpleasant to see] me".

It was the opinion of my Linguistics professor at Aidzu that Chinese was significantly closer to English in sentence structure than Japanese is (though I can't remember the specifics of the argument, nor whether it was qualified to a particular dialect—I'm even not sure to what degree sentence structure varies between the dialects).

ProfGast: will reply after sleep.

~J
KarmaInferno
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Oct 26 2010, 11:51 PM) *
Or consider a phrase like "醜い私"—we just don't use structures like like "the hateful [more literally: unpleasant to see] me".

Despicable Me? smile.gif


QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Oct 26 2010, 11:51 PM) *
It was the opinion of my Linguistics professor at Aidzu that Chinese was significantly closer to English in sentence structure than Japanese is (though I can't remember the specifics of the argument, nor whether it was qualified to a particular dialect—I'm even not sure to what degree sentence structure varies between the dialects).


As a Chinese speaker, I will agree that much of Chinese conversational language is often structured very similar to English.



-k
Karoline
Actually, the only big difference is that Japanese puts the verb at the end of the sentence. So instead of saying 'I like kittens' you say 'I kittens like'. That's why you always get that last moment interruption in Japanese. Instead of "I love you." it is "I you love."

I really need to brush up on my Japanese, I'm having trouble even remembering basic sentence structure.

Edit: Personally I like this because you can basically miss the entire sentence and just listen for that last word and at least have some vague idea what is being talked about.
Mesh
QUOTE (Karoline @ Oct 26 2010, 09:18 AM) *
As for English, I think one word sums it up:
Ghoti (Pronounced fish)

Sure, except it's not a real word.

English's origins are interesting. You've got your English roots merged with Latin merged with Germanic/Nordic all developing alongside and influenced by French, another language merged with Latin and other influences. Ghoti puts all that in light uniquely, but it doesn't change the fact that it was made up for that purpose.

Mesh

(don't believe everything you
read on the Internet wink.gif )
Karoline
I know it isn't a real word, but that isn't the point. The point is that it exists. The point is that no one would ever be able to figure out how to pronounce the word, because it sounds nothing like it looks, and yet uses the pronounceable of common English words. It is an exercise that shows the inconsistencies and oddities of the English language.

The fact that it is not a 'real' word is irrelevant. The fact that it was made up for the purpose of pointing out oddities in English is irrelevant. All that matters is that it exists. Most other languages that I know of cannot have a word like this exist, because most other languages do not have such arbitrary pronunciation.
Whipstitch
Yeah, but it's sorta like pointing out that a great white shark makes a poor apex predator by stranding it in a desert.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Karoline @ Oct 27 2010, 11:57 AM) *
Actually, the only big difference is that Japanese puts the verb at the end of the sentence. So instead of saying 'I like kittens' you say 'I kittens like'. That's why you always get that last moment interruption in Japanese. Instead of "I love you." it is "I you love."

I really need to brush up on my Japanese, I'm having trouble even remembering basic sentence structure.

Clearly wink.gif in general, and in particular in this example, "like/love" is an adjective rather than a verb, so here we have the adjective at the end. There are myriad other differences, some bigger than verb location; Japanese is pro-drop, so instead of saying "I kittens like" you say "kittens like" unless your point is about "who likes kittens" rather than your preferences.

As another example, a random sentence I came across this morning: "兄上を止めるのは儂の役目であったのに…". A natural way of translating this might be "even though it was my role to stop my brother", but that's completely scrambled structure-wise; to rearrange those parts into roughly the original order you'd get "[my brother] [to stop] [my role] [it was] [even though]". If you have a close translation to propose that even vaguely follows the original structure, please propose it—I can't think of anything.

Or a sentence from the ja.wikipedia page on eggplant: "世界の各地で独自の品種が育てられている。" Attempting to mimic the structure yields something like "around the world in various places unique varieties are raised", but that's—I mean, just read it. It doesn't even vaguely sound like something a native speaker would say or write.

QUOTE (ProfGast @ Oct 26 2010, 07:55 AM) *
That's a bit different. English last names and similar are derived, taken, or bastardized. In the US at least, given the bastardization of the language and the Ellis Island syndrome (immigration officials who could not pronounce names as presented would often just 'make up' good ol' american names for the new immigrants) as well as people simply adopting the name from acquaintances (or in the case of former slaves, former owners) the names ARE just identifiers. This does not mean however, that that the NAME Johnson is NOT in fact derived from "Johnsson --> John's Son --> Johan's Son" etc. But at least in english the literal meaning is not necessarily retained.

I believe that we're drawing towards a philosophical distinction that lacks an accepted resolution, but this seems like an unsound line of argument—there are plenty of people of direct Anglo-Saxon lineage named Smith, which I can't see differing from the situation in Japanese.

QUOTE
In chinese and japanese, regardless how a word is read, the meanings for a word are retained.

Not really true; 生物(なまもの) doesn't share any meanings with 生物(せいぶつ). No meanings are retained.

QUOTE
Especially in japanese, where you can say "Shiro" or "Jou", just for example, and still mean castle. Despite the fact that Shiro, depending on how it's said, can also mean "white".

You can say either because both are words meaning "castle" (and the one that means "white" is a homophone with different kanji; it's not just how it's said, it's a different word entirely).

QUOTE
右田 (Migita) still means, literally, "Right, Field" despite also being a standard family name.
前田 (Maeda) still means, literally, "Front, Field" despite also being a standard family name.
一郎 (Ichirou) despite being a very common male name, also does technically mean "first son". Well "One. Son." but still.

You're getting meaning from kanji, not words, but that's neither here nor there; more importantly, I don't see how this differs from "Smith".

QUOTE
But at least when written out in kanji, it doesn't matter if it's read "kofuku" or "shiawase." The end result is the meaning of the words is still "happiness."

Neither here nor there for the argument at hand, but see the 生物 example.

QUOTE
That is at least, the translation of the kanji you provided. I will grant, however, that there may well be many many ways to write "Shiawase" as a family name given the inordinately large number of ways that Japanese can read their kanji.

I can only find the one way attested, actually (which is why I proposed it despite the kanji not appearing in an English Shadowrun sourcebook that I know of. Someday I should pick up the Japanese version).

Also, something I missed:

QUOTE (ProfGast @ Oct 18 2010, 10:40 AM) *
Fun fact, the term "katana" being used to refer to any given japanese sword is much more of a western adoption than anything else. I believe the term is derived specifically from the japanese sword type "uchigatana" which refers to a specific design.

You're right about the "any Japanese sword" bit being a western adoption, but you have it backwards; katana refers to any backsword, including western-style sabers (with the specific design as an additional meaning). It's either extremely general or extremely specific.

~J
Karoline
QUOTE (Whipstitch @ Oct 27 2010, 11:57 PM) *
Yeah, but it's sorta like pointing out that a great white shark makes a poor apex predator by stranding it in a desert.

Not really at all, but whatever.

It's more similar to pointing out that a shark makes a poor predator in the desert if it actually lived in the desert. Or even more accurately, it is like pointing out the oddity of good eyesight in creatures that live exclusively in the dark (like some fish at the bottom of the ocean).
etherial
So I was reading 6WA and started to second-guess myself. How do you pronounce Wuxing?
ProfGast
QUOTE (etherial @ Oct 28 2010, 04:49 AM) *
So I was reading 6WA and started to second-guess myself. How do you pronounce Wuxing?

This one is a bit harder for me to render in roman text than japanese response. Approximately:
Oo (third tone) shing (second tone).
Edit: Before anyone jumps on me for the above, I know I shouldn't use the "sh" since "Xing" isn't a curled tongue consonant. But I'm not about to try to explain the phonetics of that. Bad enough I stuck the tones in.
Literal Translation: 5 Phases. referring to the elements. 五行

Kagetenshi: I think we're actually disagreeing on the idea of "meaning" as opposed to what the written word actually means. Not completely awake enough to point by point respond to everything, but here goes: your example of 生物 meaning different things is more a function of the different ways you can interpret each Kanji rather than actually attributed different meanings.
なまもの: 'namamono' literally raw/fresh-thing refers to raw food.
いきもの: 'ikimono' Literally living-thing would refer to a living creature
せいぶつ: 'seibutsu' "Biology".

All three are, as far as I can tell, ways to read the Kanji in japanese. And while "raw-thing" may be a bit of a stretch to compare to biology, "living thing" by any standards is not. Nor is it really a stretch to compare "living thing" to "raw thing." The differences in meaning in this case have to be separated by figuring out the context (or sticking furigana on the kanji). Meaning, however, is in fact retained. It still means Fresh/living-items. Biology is more of a constructed term but in fact, is the study of living things.

That's all I have in me right now, I'll get to the rest later? grinbig.gif

Also as a request, when you punch up walls of kanji and kana, maybe you could also stick the romaji next to it? I'm rather enjoying the debate and I'm sure a few others are, but there's probably an equally large number of people who can't even read the crazy-moonspeak and would like to know at least what we're talking about. Just a thought.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (ProfGast @ Oct 28 2010, 10:09 AM) *
your example of 生物 meaning different things is more a function of the different ways you can interpret each Kanji rather than actually attributed different meanings.
なまもの: 'namamono' literally raw/fresh-thing refers to raw food.
いきもの: 'ikimono' Literally living-thing would refer to a living creature
せいぶつ: 'seibutsu' "Biology".

All three are, as far as I can tell, ways to read the Kanji in japanese. And while "raw-thing" may be a bit of a stretch to compare to biology, "living thing" by any standards is not. Nor is it really a stretch to compare "living thing" to "raw thing." The differences in meaning in this case have to be separated by figuring out the context (or sticking furigana on the kanji). Meaning, however, is in fact retained. It still means Fresh/living-items. Biology is more of a constructed term but in fact, is the study of living things.

Right, they all share a "sense", but not in any sense a meaning. "Living thing" is not "raw thing" nor vice versa; by changing the reading you have changed the meaning in a fundamental way. They're different words despite sharing kanji.

QUOTE
That's all I have in me right now, I'll get to the rest later? grinbig.gif

If I can take two days to respond properly, I figure it's only fair that you can too smile.gif

QUOTE
Also as a request, when you punch up walls of kanji and kana, maybe you could also stick the romaji next to it? I'm rather enjoying the debate and I'm sure a few others are, but there's probably an equally large number of people who can't even read the crazy-moonspeak and would like to know at least what we're talking about. Just a thought.

I'll see if I can try to overcome my romaji aversion smile.gif

~J
Mesh
Ok, after discussing it further with the family, there is no Japanese family name "Shiawase". The kanji in question, 幸, can be an extremely rare family name, however it is pronounced Kofuku (ko foo coo). Although kofuku and shiawase share similar meanings, happiness, and the same kanji, 幸, Shiawase is not a family name like Kofuku.

Is Shiawase a family name in Shadowrun? Sure, it could be as much as anyone's name could be Jon Streetkilla or Ladyhawke, but now we enter the realm of fiction. wink.gif

Mesh
Kagetenshi
Right, I was meaning to get back to you on that: my source was ENAMDICT, but the overwhelming proportion of Google hits are for a fictional character, and the remainder that I dug through have been for a guy who assumed 幸福 pronounced "koufuku" as his personal name in a pen name. If it does exist, it's certainly rare.

~J
ProfGast
Alrighty, I'm not gonna point by point respond because I get the feeling that we're no longer arguing whether or not the words have meaning, but rather the meaning of 'meaning' and the meaning of 'word' in this case. Therefore I'll just drop my two cents in on that aspect.

To me, having learned Mandarin Chinese, I consider each and every symbol/character/kanji a *word*. In mandarin it simplifies it for these purposes in that, even though each word may have more than one meaning and/or pronunciation, each word is pronounced as only one syllable. Furthermore, Chinese is a very contextual language so unless you're given a specific context, when you read a word or phrase you'll immediately gravitate to the most common usage.

Now I realize that Japanese was its own language, which created a phoenetic alphabet and ended up borrowing Kanji for its writing. As such, various words may have various meanings that are tied into the kanji and may unintentionally create meanings that isn't what the speaker intends. I'll also bow to your greater grasp of the Japanese language. Thus, I realize my interpretation of what a word is, and what the ACTUAL Japanese meaning or such of word vs kanji is might be different.

But I still say Shiawase most probably means Happiness nyahnyah.gif

As for the Smith vs <insert Japanese family name here> argument... I really wish I could find this one article I saw a little while ago. I forget the exact details but there's a specific last name which in whichever old tongue it was in meant 'Scribe' or 'bookkeeper' implying the owner of the name was educated. Some study found an actual correlations that people with that last name had a higher percentage of members having gone through higher education, than names such as Jones, Smith, Cooper or the like. Now I realize correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation but it's interesting food for thought.
And I'll also maintain that people named 'Smith' have a rather large chance to have been descended from an actual Smith. Or were from an area known for their smithies. Or knew a Smith once. Or perhaps had an auntie who once had heard of a Smith before. Whatever wink.gif

Lastly: 刀, the symbol for 'katana' in chinese actually means ANY bladed implement with a single edge. Whether this be a kitchen knife or a glaive. By itself it either means a knife or a chinese broadsword. With modifying descriptors it can mean a number of different weapons or implements. Fun stuff.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (ProfGast @ Oct 29 2010, 01:41 AM) *
To me, having learned Mandarin Chinese, I consider each and every symbol/character/kanji a *word*. In mandarin it simplifies it for these purposes in that, even though each word may have more than one meaning and/or pronunciation, each word is pronounced as only one syllable. Furthermore, Chinese is a very contextual language so unless you're given a specific context, when you read a word or phrase you'll immediately gravitate to the most common usage.

Now I realize that Japanese was its own language, which created a phoenetic alphabet and ended up borrowing Kanji for its writing. As such, various words may have various meanings that are tied into the kanji and may unintentionally create meanings that isn't what the speaker intends. I'll also bow to your greater grasp of the Japanese language. Thus, I realize my interpretation of what a word is, and what the ACTUAL Japanese meaning or such of word vs kanji is might be different.

That's actually backwards—the phonetic alphabets were derived from kanji, and prior to their development there was a special set of kanji used purely (or primarily) for phonetic purposes. That said, it is its own language, and I think in particular something that may be tripping you up is the words using kun readings—these are words which predated kanji (or which are formed from components which predated kanji) which kanji have been mapped onto. Thus 生物(namamono) and 生物(seibutu) are different not just in pronunciation and meaning, but also in derivation and creation order—the first a preexisting word to which the kanji have been mapped, the second a reading of the kanji. I'm not certain that it doesn't happen, but I can't immediately call to mind a word with two readings both based on on-readings whose meanings are similarly distinct.

~J
Janus
Hi, I contributed for SR(both Fanpor and Catalyst) and have contributed for Japanese-translated SR4, with pen name "Masaaki Mutsuki"(sorry, I'd like to keep real name unspoken). So while I don't know what idea namers of "Shiawase" or "Renraku" had, I do know how "Shiawase" or "Renraku" are written in Japanese. I use Japanese characters, so be careful about character corruption.

in Japanese-translated SR2,
Shiawase(corp name) is written as "シアワセ"
Shiawase(family name) is written as "幸"
Renraku is written as "レンラク"
Fuchi is written as "渕"

in Japanese-translated SR4,
Shiawase(corp name) is written as "シアワセ"
Shiawase(family name) is written as "倖"
Renraku is written as "レンラク"
Fuchi is written as "フチ"

In RL, many Japanese corporations change them name from kanji to katakana, to have more grobal corporate identity. So it is fine Shiawase the corp name isn't same as Shiawase the family name. And there are a few odd family names in RL Japan, even from native Japanese. So I think "幸" and "倖" are very odd and unlikely, but possible as family names.


I hope I can help you.


>Kagetenshi
You can try a thread about Shadowrun.

【29スレ】TRPG:シャドウラン、どうしてこうなった
(<29th thread>Shadowrun: TRPG, why it became like that?)
http://yuzuru.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/cgame/1280565525/l50

It is 29th thread about Shadowrun at 2-chan. Many of poster are anonymous. It might offline when it become too old, If this link doesn't work, search the board(http://yuzuru.2ch.net/cgame/) with keyword "シャドウラン".
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Janus @ Oct 29 2010, 10:54 AM) *
in Japanese-translated SR2,
[…]
Shiawase(family name) is written as "幸"
[…]
in Japanese-translated SR4,
[…]
Shiawase(family name) is written as "倖"

Huh. Any reason you're aware of for this change?

QUOTE
>Kagetenshi
You can try a thread about Shadowrun.

【29スレ】TRPG:シャドウラン、どうしてこうなった
(<29th thread>Shadowrun: TRPG, why it became like that?)
http://yuzuru.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/cgame/1280565525/l50

It is 29th thread about Shadowrun at 2-chan. Many of poster are anonymous. It might offline when it become too old, If this link doesn't work, search the board(http://yuzuru.2ch.net/cgame/) with keyword "シャドウラン".

Much appreciated! I dug around 2ch once, but for whatever reason didn't find anything.

~J
Janus
QUOTE
Huh. Any reason you're aware of for this change?

If "幸" is a happiness in general, "倖" would be a happiness in personal relations(love, compassion and so forth). And Shiawase family is full of family shackles(in other words, unhappiness in personal relations). So I felt "倖" would fit to Shiawase family, as a cynic.

And to tell the truth, I decide to select the word(so blame me if it is an unsolicited interference). I hope it doesn't sound too boastfulness...

QUOTE
Much appreciated! I dug around 2ch once, but for whatever reason didn't find anything.

~J

The pleasure was mine.
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