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Japanese Words in Neuromancer
- legerdemain 5y agoThe essay itself introduces a novel word: "drogadicts." I assume it's teledigitally translated from Spanish.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago>Sarariman I get using loan words when they have a different definition in the new language, but what's the difference between a sarariman and a salary man?
- Razengan 5y agoI guess the same as between an emoji and an emoticon.
- cyphar 5y agoEmoji doesn't share an etymology with the English word emoticon. 絵文字 just means "picture character" and is a native Japanese word.
- marssaxman 5y agoWow, I never knew! Thanks for explaining.
- charcircuit 5y agoThose are different things. An emoticon is like :) where an emoji would be a single character of a smiling face.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kadoban 5y agoDid the phrase "salary man" exist before the Japanese phrase? I believe it's kind of a loan word that just happens to be made up of originally English words.
- pvg 5y agoWikipedia seems to think it's not one of those: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaryman#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaryman#History
- cyphar 5y agoOn the other hand, Japanese Wikipedia[1] says it was originally a 和製英語 (wasei-eigo/Japanese-invented English word): > ただしサラリーマン (salaryman) は元々和製英語であり、… 「サラリーマン」は和製英語であるが、後に欧米でも「"日本の"ホワイトカラーの会社員」を指す普通名詞（Salaryman）として浸透しつつある。 ("But "salaryman" is originally a Japanese-invented English word [...] Though "salaryman" is a Japanese-invented English word, it has subsequently spread throughout the West as a way of referring to Japanese white collar workers.") Though 大辞林 (one of the main dictionaries) does say "salaried man" in its definition, I'm not sure whether that proves that is the etymology (usually 和製英語 are noted differently but given that the term is used outside of Japan now they might just write it in a way that'd be understood even if it's not correct). [1]: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B5%E3%83%A9%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9E%E3%83%B3 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B5%E3%83%A9%E3%83%AA%E3...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rcoder 5y agoI’m not sure this is universally true, but in most contexts I’ve heard while studying Japanese and visiting Japan, サラリマン (sarariman) indicates someone with the kind of lifetime-employment, “I live in town in a coffin hotel during the week and only see my family on the weekends” job that used to be common for white-collar workers. The identity, uniform, and work ethic are all part of the package. It’s been a while since most big companies in the US could claim that kind of life-long career and mutual loyalty was likely or even desirable, but early IBM might be an apt comparison., down to the dress code, company songbook, and 40-year tenures for senior staff.
- needle0 5y agoThe proper notation would be "サラリーマン", with a bar between リ and マ which indicates an elongated sound. In fact, writing it as "サラリマン" actually evokes images of a "caricatured western-POV stereotype of a Japanese stereotype salaryman" due to westerners frequently making this mistake.
- totetsu 5y agoThis same sound shift is why the escalator says babI-car and not baby-car
- rcoder 5y agoYep, you're right. My apologies. It has been about 25 years since I actively studied or spoke Japanese, and I was typing on my phone. My explanation was trying for "understandable" but may have veered into "problematically over-simplified," not to mention insufficiently copy-edited.
- wodenokoto 5y agoMaybe salaryman hadn’t entered the English vocabulary by the 80s. Salaryman almost always refers to Japanese white collar.
- veidr 5y agoI think this is right. I read Neuromancer and first came to Japan in the 1980s. IIRC the term "salaryman" wasn't yet commonly known in English. However, it was known by English-speaking people who had been to Japan, or were somehow involved with Japan. But not yet mainstream English.
- ncmncm 5y agoIt absolutely had entered English vocabulary, if only so far as to refer to Japanese people we were told were obliged to drink at karaoke bars with co-workers every evening. Probably most Americans' awareness of Japanese words came from a very long James Clavell historical novel amazingly many people read, as was still done back then, called Shōgun. I recall a very bad movie in which a black gang leader insisted on being called Shōgun, for no apparent reason.
- bane 5y agoI think you are referring to "The Last Dragon" which is considered an all time cult classic.
- selimthegrim 5y agoShogun had been made into a TV miniseries with Richard Chamberlain c. 1980
- the_af 5y agoShogun, the TV miniseries, is pretty good. It features actual Japanese stars like Toshiro Mifune, and spoken Japanese (without subtitles) during much of the show, which was novel at the time. I think the other commenter referred to an unrelated TV show with a gang leader calling himself "a Shogun".
- astrange 5y agoThere's a funny part at the start of another Gibson novel where the protagonist "wishes he was back in Chiyoda", which is kind of like saying you live in Santa Clara County instead of San Jose. I guess it was harder to do research back then.
- rikishiama 5y agoI'm not sure I get this. Chiyoda no doubt refers to the ward Chiyoda in central Tokyo, immediately to the east of Shinjuku, so would be similar to someone who used to live in San Francisco saying "I wish I was back in the Tenderloin."
- astrange 5y agoChiyoda-ku is larger than the areas people talk about. eg you say Akihabara not Chiyoda-ku (or Taito-ku) and Ikebukuro not Toshima-ku. Does anyone wish they were back in the Tenderloin?
- duskwuff 5y ago> Does anyone wish they were back in the Tenderloin? Generally not, but that's more because it's the Tenderloin than because it's so small.
- strken 5y agoThe bahn mi places along Larkin were good, I miss Brenda's, and I'd gotten to the point where the lady at the nearest laundromat remembered my name. People shit-talk the Tenderloin a lot but it wasn't that bad to live in for a single male with no kids, even at night.
- astrange 5y agoMensho is pretty good.
- thematrixturtle 5y agoI've always found it mildly amusing that Gibson picked Chiba, of all places, for his "Night City". In reality it's a rather dull suburban, mostly residential extension of Tokyo (in Japanese, a "bed town") primarily known as the location of Narita Airport, with both criminal organizations and zaibatsu HQs in distinctly short supply. That said, I'm not quite sure where I'd locate it. Akihabara would have been a shoo-in but that's been taken over by the anime crowd. Kawasaki, perhaps?
- saberdancer 5y agoI would wager that he chose it due to the name being simple and "unused". Kawasaki is a motorcycle brand so it would be slightly confusing, Akihabara is quite long and harder to pronounce.
- duskwuff 5y agoDid Chiba and Akihabara have their respective reputations in the early 1980s, though? It's a little silly to compare the modern state of a city with a 40-year-old projection.
- thematrixturtle 5y agoYes, nothing about Chiba has fundamentally changed since the 1980s. Akihabara has shifted from electronics to anime/gaming, but that's a fairly natural progression and it's still very geeky/otaku, just in a different way.
- rasz 5y agohttps://sabukaru.online/articles/ghosts-of-1980s-japan-by-johny-pitts https://sabukaru.online/articles/ghosts-of-1980s-japan-by-jo... http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/1983-akihabara-japan-cassette2go-aka-james-pierce-took-pics-of-stuff-he-could-not-afford.7106/ http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/1983-akihabara-japan-cas... 昭和６１年の秋葉原（※別に高画質版あります） Akihabara 1986 (240p Low quality version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6zmIe0tJxE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6zmIe0tJxE Fun To See What Was For Sale In 1993 Tokyo Electronics District https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNoVD-ljVBM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNoVD-ljVBM Gibson made stuff up as any sf writer does. He never used a computer before writing Neuromancer, and he visited Japan for the first time in 1988, 4 years after first novel release.
- duskwuff 5y agoA lot of this feels pretty superficial. I was kind of hoping to see more of an analysis of how Gibson uses foreign words for texture, rather than a simple glossary. The essay misses one interesting detail: along with the Chatsubo, another restaurant Case visits in the first chapter of Neuromancer is "a teashop called the Jarre de The". Both names mean "pot of tea" -- one in Japanese, the other in French. The juxtaposition is more than coincidence.
- sloan 5y agoAnd this article is full of typos
- brazzy 5y agoAnd factual inaccuracies. > Yakuza ヤクザ: is the largest criminal organisation in Japan, similar to the mafia. The word describes a type of criminal organization, not a singular organization. There are many completely independant yakuza groups.
- HelloNurse 5y agoYakuza organizations aren't likely to be "completely independent", even if rival and autonomous: their relationships tie them into a criminal meta-organization, which if pure enough can be seen from outside as "the Yakuza" even if it isn't a federation or a conglomerate.
- kalimanzaro 5y agoIt's just like "The" Mafia, even though we know there are multiple Families.
- micromacrofoot 5y agoaren't there also multiple mafias? I thought a mafia was a type, and essentially the western yakuza
- tkgally 5y agoThis reminds of a list I’ve been compiling for the past couple of years: English-language software and products with names taken from Japanese. I find them interesting because there has long been awareness, discussion, and controversy in Japan about the opposite phenomenon—English words used in Japanese. The following examples all came from HN: Koi Pond, a load testing tool. Koi (鯉) means “carp.” https://slack.engineering/load-testing-with-koi-pond/ https://slack.engineering/load-testing-with-koi-pond/ Anki, a flash card tool often mentioned in HN discussions. Anki (暗記) means “memorization.” https://apps.ankiweb.net/ https://apps.ankiweb.net/ Bento, a framework for development of Linux kernel file systems. A bento (弁当) is a meal in a box. https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.09723 https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.09723 Umami, a website analytics tool. Umami (旨味)’s original meaning is “taste, flavor, deliciousness”; it now also refers to a particular basic taste sensation. https://umami.is/ https://umami.is/ Senpai, a gaming assistant. Senpai (先輩) means “someone senior to or older than one, typically in an educational or workplace hierarchy.” https://senpai.gg/ https://senpai.gg/ Shodan, a search engine. Shodan (初段) means “first-level ranking in a skill, etc.” https://www.shodan.io/ https://www.shodan.io/ YubiKey, an authentication device. Yubi (指) means “finger.” https://www.yubico.com/ https://www.yubico.com/ Asahi Linux. Asahi (朝日, 旭) means “morning sun.” https://asahilinux.org/about/ https://asahilinux.org/about/ Neko, a virtual browser. Neko (猫) means “cat.” https://github.com/m1k1o/neko https://github.com/m1k1o/neko Kaitai Struct, a declarative language for binary data structures. Kaitai (解体) means “disassembly.” https://kaitai.io/ https://kaitai.io/ Hikari, a custom logon script engine for Windows. Hikari (光) means “light.” https://github.com/NoenDex/Hikari https://github.com/NoenDex/Hikari Hikari, a Wayland compositor. https://hikari.acmelabs.space/ https://hikari.acmelabs.space/ Hikari, a thread manager and dispatcher. https://artificialilliteracy.wordpress.com/2015/06/27/introducing-hikari-multithreading-for-unity/ https://artificialilliteracy.wordpress.com/2015/06/27/introd...
- duskwuff 5y ago> Shodan, a search engine. Shodan (初段) means “first-level ranking in a skill, etc.” In this context it's more likely a reference to the malevolent AI in the 1994 video game System Shock -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHODAN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHODAN > Asahi Linux. Asahi (朝日, 旭) means “morning sun.” As noted on the Asahi web page, it is also the Japanese name for the apple cultivar known in the US as the McIntosh. :)
- needle0 5y ago"Ono-Sendai: in the book this is a Japanese corporation that manufactures cyberdecks. In Japanese “Ono” means ax and “Sendai” is the name of a prefecture in Japan." Ono (斧) is indeed ax in Japanese, but is also a common surname. (The name is written differently, as 小野, no relation to axes.) Being a company name, it sounds more natural to interpret it as a surname rather than a weapon.
- freetime2 5y agoAlso, Sendai is a city, not a prefecture.
- dsr_ 5y agoFor Gibson, a cyberdeck is mythologized as a guitar, and electric guitars are called axes.
- mdp2021 5y agoNon negligible possibility: the "ax" is also the traditionally identified root for labyrinth - 'labrys' intending the "double-edged axe", and "labyrinth" the "extended, intricate palace under the symbol for power". This may suggest (were it intentional from Gibson) the "matrix" as a futuristic labyrinth under the same symbol of power. (You - presumably - accessed the labyrinth through a portal with the labrys, and you access the matrix through a portal with the "ono".)
- snvzz 5y ago>It went from being considered as the source of cheap imitation gadgets during the 60s and 70s to the country at the forefront of high quality technology. We see this repeated with China.
- ncmncm 5y ago> "Cyberspace ... has actually become a common word used by all of us." No, no it has not. Various corporate and government flacks, and tone-deaf reporters, have been trying for decades to make it a word we use. But we do not. I have never said it out loud. And there is no reason to expect we ever will.
- mdp2021 5y agoIt stimulates leisure thoughts about what a "cyberspace" can be. Directly, it is the sea: the kybernetes traditionally guides a ship. The direct descendant, recognizable in sound, of kybernan is "govern", and the "space for governing" can be anything, any metaphor from the mind to the house to the world. In the sense after Norbert Wiener, it is the space where feedback is key to orienting behavior - and, again, it could be everything (and, in satiric terms, nothing).
- naniwaduni 5y agoCybernetics is, of course, the study of Kubernetes deployment.
- mdp2021 5y agoThe name of the software named "Kubernetes" makes sense only as a "governor" for containers. Cybernetics /may/ be with effort used to indicate "management of agents", because your example seems to use it that way, but it seems unfitting: the image of the "steering man" for 'cybernetics', the "study of feedback based systems", comes from the fact of the heavy feedback that a ship and its controls give to the operator and must be managed to operate effectively - to "direct" a ship, you have to "govern" it (not simply "instruct" it), that is (seems to be) where the sense comes from. "Cybernetics" clearly deals with all feedback based systems, not just "agents with respect to events and resources" (the latter by the way being more a matter of "economics") like the mentioned software seems to do (and one could wonder how much sophisticated theory is behind it, and how much just centralized management. Kubernetes, the software, does many different things). (Of course, clearly yours remains a joke as a «study» involves "laws", principles, not implementations.)
- Pamar 5y agoThe one that struck me the most was: "Sanpaku 三白 literally means “three” 三 “white” 白. It is used to describe eyes positioned in such a way that the iris does not touch the bottom eyelid, showing how the sclera is all connected." (if you google for 三白 images you will find many examples). I thought it odd that a language needed a word for something like this (shades of the myth about Eskimos having hundreds of word for snow), so I asked my Calligraphy teacher about this (she is Japanese). Specifically, I just asked her: I mean, "the fact that someone is looking at you in a way that a slim portion of the white of their eyes is showing either below or over the iris" is something that is often a topic of discussion? Her answer: Not really, but in the past, people defined it as a criminal face and didn't really like it. Nowadays it seems like it's a part of beauty. They put Audrey Hepburn as an example. (also, you would probably write 三白眼, - Just 三白 would be, "the snow falls on the first three days of the year" - or a horse with three white legs, like https://images.app.goo.gl/JBU1d9bQaAYmVVfj9 https://images.app.goo.gl/JBU1d9bQaAYmVVfj9 )
- ncmncm 5y agoThere was a book, You Are All Sanpaku by George Ohsawa (that most would have seen after 1983) implying Americans were in an unhealthy condition. Which we are, now more than then. But so are they, if maybe less so.
- ehnto 5y agoOne of my favorite parts of Cyberpunk 2077 the game, was the decent amount of Japanese used throughout. I think they really did nail the cyberpunk aesthetic, perhaps with some modernizations within. I appreciate as well that there was a full Japanese dub for a few of the characters including the main character.
- porknubbins 5y agoHaving spent some time living the expat life in Japan its amazing how well Gibson captures the feeling of the whole experience, while making up the actual facts. Nothing I have read comes closer than Neuromancer in capturing the feeling of being thrust into an unknown environment and trying to survive on minimal resources.