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The repetition makes sense to me because it works in both languages. Mt. Tate would confuse locals. Mt. Tateyama satisfies the need to make it "english" and als
by rangibaby 10y ago
The repetition makes sense to me because it works in both languages. Mt. Tate would confuse locals. Mt. Tateyama satisfies the need to make it "english" and also works in Japanese because they can just ignore the Mt. part.
- yomly 10y agoBut people are fine with Mount Fuji... Incidentally, most people are also fine dropping the "Mount" prefix for Everest, Kilimanjaro amongst others...
- rangibaby 10y agoMt Fuji works because of the historical context. There are plenty of words and loan words now that would be different if they were translated using best practices today. I for one am fine with dropping the Mt prefix. Most of the people mountains are named after are dead now so there is no need to disambiguate them. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this issue; signposts here translate e.g. 長良川 as Nagaragawa River. I thought it was silly, but if you talked about the "Nagara" I bet 100 yen that you will get a sideways look.
- yomly 10y agoI can see your point, but and maybe I'm being fastidious, but I Nagaragawa River also irritates me. It's only born of ignorance - no one calls it Mt Montblanc. I get it - the original meaning of the word is as relevant to its name as is the combination of the words forming its proper noun. To the Japanese Fujiyama is Fujiyama, and so there goes an argument for transliterating the name. And as point out, good luck communicating with a local when you ask where the "Nagara" is. But look at the converse: Loch Ness 尼斯湖nisihu in Chinese ネス湖 nesuko in Japanese