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No, the Japanese word is デバドラ. Once you translate or transliterate it, you’ve diverged from the original and there are choices to be made with different answers

No, the Japanese word is デバドラ. Once you translate or transliterate it, you’ve diverged from the original and there are choices to be made with different answers depending on context and intent. The example above of “sale” is a good one. In a Japanese shop for Japanese and by Japanese, you will see “sale” but you will never see se-ru.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
>> Like it or not, the Japanese word is "debadora". > No, the Japanese word is デバドラ. False; these are one and the same claim, not two conflicting claims. > Once you translate or transliterate it, you’ve diverged from the original Again, this is wrong. If your "transliteration" has diverged from the original, it's not a transliteration. A transliteration is a reflection of the original, just using a different orthographic system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration
- numpad0 6y ago
  So when Japanese romanizations is discussed in English(or any other Latin) expressions in question are written in Latin alphabet e.g. “katsu” or “furafu-pu”, but maybe it should be explicitly noted, in Wikipedia or somewhere, that this form is almost never used in actual Japanese texts. When an “alphabet” representation of a word is used in Japanese texts, the version of the word in either the original language or English is used. e.g. > タミル（Tamiḻ）という名称は、ドラミラ Dramiḻa（ドラヴィダ Dravida）の変化した形という説もある。[0] [0]: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/タミル語 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/タミル語
- aikinai 6y ago
  I guess you're trying to be pedantic, but that's never useful when talking about humans, especially human language. And even if we tried to remove the human element, the transliteration is clearly not the same or even an accurate reflection; if it were, then transliterating to Japanese and back would get you the same word and this wouldn’t even be a problem. The key factor you seem to be missing is that most of these words are themselves very lossy transliterations of original English words. Some become so ingrained in Japanese that they’re considered Japanese words by most people, and would make sense to leave in their lossy, katakana form even if romanized. As many people have mentioned here, “katsu” is ironically one of those words. However, words like katsu are the exception and most are still considered English (or other language) words with the katakana being a best-effort representation in Japanese. The links shared by Zarel[0] and numpad0[1] demonstrate this perfectly. The “original” word being expressed is “home” and “ホーム” is just the best you can do in an official Japanese script. “Ho-mu” isn’t useful for anyone, foreign or Japanese. It’s meaningless to non-Japanese speakers who aren’t familiar with the lossy transliteration to Japanese they need mentally reverse it. Japanese speakers could work it out quickly enough, but it would take more time and confusion since it’s neither representation they’re familiar with everyday, the original word “home” and the expected Japanese representation “ホーム.” [0] https://magazine.jp.square-enix.com/biggangan/ https://magazine.jp.square-enix.com/biggangan/ [1] https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/タミル語 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/タミル語
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    I think there’s more of a philosophical disagreement between you two about what makes a given word “Japanese” and how orthographic renderings are determinative of that. You highlight lossiness of many loan words and I personally think that when they’ve reached this level of divergence in Japanese, they become equivalent, regardless of orthography (because the Japanese writing system contains within it Roman script). Are “naive,” “ナイーブ,” and “ｎａｉーｂｕ” all Japanese words for example? I don’t think it’s a settled question one way or the other, but is highly variable on context and history. For example, there have been several pushes, beginning with the Meiji to Revolution, to switch Japan to writing exclusively in romaji. If any had succeeded, we’d view this debate quite differently: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27756125?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/27756125?seq=1
deleted 6y ago
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thaumasiotes 6y ago

>> Like it or not, the Japanese word is "debadora". > No, the Japanese word is デバドラ. False; these are one and the same claim, not two conflicting claims. > Once you translate or transliterate it, you’ve diverged from the original Again, this is wrong. If your "transliteration" has diverged from the original, it's not a transliteration. A transliteration is a reflection of the original, just using a different orthographic system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transliteration

numpad0 6y ago
So when Japanese romanizations is discussed in English(or any other Latin) expressions in question are written in Latin alphabet e.g. “katsu” or “furafu-pu”, but maybe it should be explicitly noted, in Wikipedia or somewhere, that this form is almost never used in actual Japanese texts. When an “alphabet” representation of a word is used in Japanese texts, the version of the word in either the original language or English is used. e.g. > タミル（Tamiḻ）という名称は、ドラミラ Dramiḻa（ドラヴィダ Dravida）の変化した形という説もある。[0] [0]: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/タミル語 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/タミル語
aikinai 6y ago
I guess you're trying to be pedantic, but that's never useful when talking about humans, especially human language. And even if we tried to remove the human element, the transliteration is clearly not the same or even an accurate reflection; if it were, then transliterating to Japanese and back would get you the same word and this wouldn’t even be a problem. The key factor you seem to be missing is that most of these words are themselves very lossy transliterations of original English words. Some become so ingrained in Japanese that they’re considered Japanese words by most people, and would make sense to leave in their lossy, katakana form even if romanized. As many people have mentioned here, “katsu” is ironically one of those words. However, words like katsu are the exception and most are still considered English (or other language) words with the katakana being a best-effort representation in Japanese. The links shared by Zarel[0] and numpad0[1] demonstrate this perfectly. The “original” word being expressed is “home” and “ホーム” is just the best you can do in an official Japanese script. “Ho-mu” isn’t useful for anyone, foreign or Japanese. It’s meaningless to non-Japanese speakers who aren’t familiar with the lossy transliteration to Japanese they need mentally reverse it. Japanese speakers could work it out quickly enough, but it would take more time and confusion since it’s neither representation they’re familiar with everyday, the original word “home” and the expected Japanese representation “ホーム.” [0] https://magazine.jp.square-enix.com/biggangan/ https://magazine.jp.square-enix.com/biggangan/ [1] https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/タミル語 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/タミル語
- claudeganon 6y ago
  I think there’s more of a philosophical disagreement between you two about what makes a given word “Japanese” and how orthographic renderings are determinative of that. You highlight lossiness of many loan words and I personally think that when they’ve reached this level of divergence in Japanese, they become equivalent, regardless of orthography (because the Japanese writing system contains within it Roman script). Are “naive,” “ナイーブ,” and “ｎａｉーｂｕ” all Japanese words for example? I don’t think it’s a settled question one way or the other, but is highly variable on context and history. For example, there have been several pushes, beginning with the Meiji to Revolution, to switch Japan to writing exclusively in romaji. If any had succeeded, we’d view this debate quite differently: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27756125?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/27756125?seq=1

deleted 6y ago

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