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Isn't this essentially telling other languages how they're supposed to work?
by ginko 7y ago
Isn't this essentially telling other languages how they're supposed to work?
- oddeyed 7y agoI don't really think so - I think it's more about asserting that the name ordering does hold meaningful and legitimate significance for people who are native Japanese. For comparison, consider the loan word in English, "Sushi". No one in English would consider calling it by the name "Raw Fish and Rice" because the term "Sushi" implies a specific cultural context and carries the connection to Japan, Japanese culture and history etc. Trying to take the word "Sushi" away from the concept of "Sushi" would be almost rude, as it is de-valuing the social context that it is connected with. By comparison, at the moment, East Asian people typically re-order their names to fit Western norms in Western contexts, which by the the opposite token implies that the name ordering isn't that important, and doesn't carry any significance to the person who wears the name. Deciding to use the traditional ordering isn't about telling other languages how they're supposed to work, it's about asking other people to acknowledge your cultural context as legitimate and equal to their own. The decision to do this now may well, in this case, be steeped in nationalist sentiment as the article implies.
- baddox 7y agoBut the optimistic view is that the name order normalization is motivated primarily by the desire to minimize confusion among speakers of the language in question (in this case, English). Using the Western name order for Japanese names in English could simply be a straightforward way to translate names without requiring a lot of additional explanation to English speakers. That’s the same reason we almost always transliterate the Japanese names in English, and I don’t see much argument to stop doing that. To me it seems like a better idea is to promulgate the convention of uppercasing the English family name in contexts where different name orders are likely to appear. I believe I have seen that convention on TV broadcasts of the Olympics, and it seems like a good idea.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago> By comparison, at the moment, East Asian people typically re-order their names to fit Western norms in Western contexts, which by the the opposite token implies that the name ordering isn't that important, and doesn't carry any significance to the person who wears the name. As mentioned in the article, only the Japanese do this. (Well, Hungarians do too, but they're not even West Asian.) East Asians except for the Japanese do not reorder their names. Normal practice for a Chinese person would be to use an English name in English contexts.
- baddox 7y agoThat’s definitely true, and I suspect many English speakers are unaware of this. How many American basketball fans know that Yao is the family name of Yao Ming?
- thaumasiotes 7y agoHeck, I was unaware. But the thing that surprised me was that Japanese names are presented backwards in English media, not that Chinese names aren't.
- gumby 7y agoWell it's liker the German government saying that they will always write München even in English; that doesn't say anything about how English speakers (or German private citizens speaking English) might choose to refer to Munich. In Malaysia "Datuk" is used as a combined honorific with a name when speaking otherwise completely idiomatic English rather than being translated into "Sir So-and-so" It's not really different from the Maharashtran givernment deciding to write Bombay as "Mumbai" in English (which is how my grandfather pronounced it even when speaking English). Unaddressed in the essay is how the construct SURNAME given_name (e.g. BREL Jaques) is quite common in countries like France -- not used in social conversation but in all official contexts including work and school. And let's not forget "Bond, James Bond." The "communitarian/individualist" split and even more so its onomastic implication is overrated IMHO as you can see from my French example above.
- Baeocystin 7y agoFrankly I don't care one way or another regarding the ordering, but as a method to unambiguously specify which name is which, regardless of order, I'm all for it.
- roenxi 7y ago> Well it's liker the German government saying that they will always write München even in English; that doesn't say anything about how English speakers (or German private citizens speaking English) might choose to refer to Munich. I suppose this sort of thing instantly confuses me - why aren't we already calling the city München if that is what the Germans are doing?
- layoutIfNeeded 7y agoFrom Wikipedia: The name of the city is derived from the Old/Middle High German term Munichen, meaning "by the monks".
- frabert 7y agoThe Italian name for München/Munich is Monaco (literally "monk"), which makes a lot of sense now :)
- tus88 7y agoNo, it's when Japan writes in English, not when we do.
- fiblye 7y agoIt isn't. Spoken English uses the expressions "first name" and "last name", but in official documentation, everyone pretty much asks for your family name/surname and given name. Those aren't determined by order.