SUDDENLY, LANGUAGE LAWS!

[hughes]

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

IT IS HERE, FINALLY. That which many of you have been waiting for and asking for, and that which we mods have been racking our brains over and which we finally figured out! That which comprises yet another BEHEMOTH of Landel's Damned guidelines!

LANGUAGE LAWS AT LANDEL'S

We tried our best to explain everything as thoroughly as we could, and though there's a simple little version of the rules up top, we'd like it if everyone read through the giant thing at least once so that we're all on the same page and there aren't any misunderstandings.

But haven't all these rules been contradicted by just about everybody in the past? Yes, they have! But it's okay, since we're just going to do a cleansweep and make it so that, suddenly, at the very beginning of this Nightshift, Landel's magic will make everyone's language perception snap to fit those rules, and from then on, we'll be working off of those guidelines.

I know it's a lot to read, but at least it'll help us all be consistent, yeah? D:

In other news, as you can see here, Court has totally kicked my ass again we're slowly but surely getting to the finish line! (I sacrificed app-reading time today to work on the Language Laws, as I figured we should clarify all that before Nightshift.) Hang in there, those of you who haven't gotten e-mails yet! D:

Also, Leora, where are yoouuuu? MR. PUDDLES NEEDS YOU

Comments

[laverinth.livejournal.com]

I was actually just thinking of Shampoo from Ranma 1/2... She'd fall into a similar category as Hiro, wouldn't she? (Though it's only in the English version that her Japanese is so broken). Not that I'm apping her or anything, but for future reference. 8D;

[subversive.livejournal.com]

.... *SUSPICIOUS STARE*

[hughes]

Woo, I'm so happy that section helped SOMEONE! 8D;

[lokogato.livejournal.com]

... ROFL YOU GUYS. THE ILLUSTRATIONS MADE ME LAUGH OUT LOUD AND MY ROOMMATE IS TRYING TO SLEEP. THANKS. ♥

And thanks for clarification, although as lame one-character pony from an imaginary 'verse, I was kinna operating on the assumption that the characters all understood each other anyway. 8D;;;;; PHEW.

[hughes]

I AM GLAD TO HEAR YOU WERE AMUSED. <333 I figured I should have some fun with it. :X

[roseargent.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it does, but just to be sure: does onmyouji/onmyoujutsu count as untranslatable? Yes, there are elements of shamanism and exorcism to it, but onmyouji are a pretty Japan-specific... erm... class? (As in RPG class like mage or warrior or ranger or whatever, not social class). So, yeah. Onmyouji: untranslatable y/n? (Same goes for ofuda, too, I think?

[hughes]

Y! You may keep onmyouji/onmyoujutsu and ofuda as they are. :3

[whiteychan.livejournal.com]

Note that this does not include generic, translatable titles such as specific military/company/social ranks, family relationships, etc., unless you can justify to us why such a title wouldn't translate well to English given the context of the canon.

Quick question for the Bleach-ites. Taichou and Fukutaichou are generally assumed to be captain and vice captain, and we often use both interchangeably depending on mood and what sounds best at the time; however, if I recall the technically correct word isn't captain but "unit commander." Can we still use those two titles when speaking to each other, or do we have to use "captain?"

Other than that, this was hilarious and cool. :P

I figure zanpakutou and shinigami fit into the whole, "sound just plain weird translated" category. XD

[hughes]

I was actually wondering if this would come up, since I know the Bleach fandom seems to go back and forth between the English and Japanese versions of the titles. As your guys' characters are from an actual Japanese canon (unlike, say, FMA or FFVII, whose canons are technically English), I'll go ahead and say taichou/fukutaichou are a-okay.

YYYYEAH, pretty much all those Bleach titles fit that category HENCE THE ICHIGO

[sugarsweetblood.livejournal.com]

Questions go here, yes?! along with the people determined to make it difficult, but that's a given~~

D.Gray-Man canon (oh, don't you just love it!) holds that everyone in the world speaks English when dealing with each other. That makes the canon language English (I'm assuming?). However, just about every character comes from a different country of origin - Kanda's Japanese, Rinali's Chinese, Ravi's... I don't know, but he's probably fluent in about 20 different languages at least** - so they no doubt have their own languages that they use.

((**and on that note, how do you handle characters who are well versed in a good number of languages and technically have more than one second language?))

Should the characters from the D.Gray-Man world assume English as their Main Language since that is how everyone communicates in the canon, or are they to assume their language of origin as their main language? I wouldn't ask since it should fall under the personal choice section, but the examples given there were of people who were not in a world that had a common language of communication world-wide as D.Gray-Man does.

[whiteychan.livejournal.com]

not a mod of course, but I'd ~guess~ that you can choose, since (say, with Rinali), she'd be fluent in Chinese and English, and since canonically she's assumed to be speaking English most of the time, I can choose English or Chinese.

[hughes]

Yes, Questions here! :D

((**and on that note, how do you handle characters who are well versed in a good number of languages and technically have more than one second language?))

As explained in the Second Language section, every language other than the language you declare as your character's main language counts as a second language. So basically, treat each "second language" (or third or fourth or fifth or hundredth language...) in the ways explained in that same section. They'll still be fluent in all of them, but only people who also canonly know whichever language they're speaking at the time will be able to understand what they're saying.

Should the characters from the D.Gray-Man world assume English as their Main Language since that is how everyone communicates in the canon, or are they to assume their language of origin as their main language?

As David said up thar, you still have a choice between your character's native language and the language generally spoken by your character in canon, but(!)... we mods would strongly suggest you guys pick English, since that's more practical and easier to handle overall, especially considering the canon circumstances you guys are describing.

[colortheory.livejournal.com]

I understand the reasoning behind the post, and your need to explain that reasoning at every step, but it gets so bogged down in the little details that I got really confused. It took a few re-readings for me to understand it.

Also: Keman is bilingual, and he says a lot of things in his canon that aren't translated (mostly when he swears). I know it's a stupid question, but...better safe than sorry--

I can leave it in Draconic, right?

"Fewmets!" sounds a lot cooler than "dragon shit!"

[hughes]

I understand the reasoning behind the post, and your need to explain that reasoning at every step, but it gets so bogged down in the little details that I got really confused. It took a few re-readings for me to understand it.

Yeah, towards the end of writing the whole thing, I was like "Man, does it really need to be this complicated? I mean, it makes sense to me, but I'm the one writing it all down, so..."

But the more I'm re-reading through it, the more I'm satisfied that although it is complicated, it does pretty much cover every situation we can think of possibly occurring. (Better to answer all the questions before they're asked and having them publicly centralized in one place, right?)

So while I do agree that a simpler, possibly blanket English solution would be much more practical in a smaller community, given the diversity of characters and the big cast of the RP, it's better if we lay down some super-specific rules with a super-inclusive basis so that we have all our bases covered. Otherwise, you'd probably end up with us mods having to make a bunch of individual, subjective decisions for individual players through AIM, (something which we probably don't have time for, in all practicality) and we'd end up with a huge set of contradictory exceptions to the rule that would create unwritten standards far more complicated than those explained in our new language section. (Which is sort of the way it's been, with each player independently trying to explain the way the languages work at Landel's. It's not the players' faults by any means - but we do want to clear that up, especially before our current influx of new players.)

Also: Keman is bilingual, and he says a lot of things in his canon that aren't translated (mostly when he swears)... I can leave it in Draconic, right?

As mentioned in the Exceptions to the Rule section, YES, you may keep your fewmets! 8D Random other-language (or untranslatable) cursing within someone's main language is a-okay.

[melting.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll ask the question burning on all of the One Piece muns (or really just myself and Jansen - I can't speak for the rest) -

Nakama. It's.. well, untranslatable into English. Kind of - more than friends, the bond between crewmates/etc that transcends even friendship? It's a term that's very defined in the One Piece 'verse, and for this reason, the most prominent/respected fansub group (and the one which I personally accept as anime canon) has left the word in Japanese in their translation, simply because there's no English equivalent and these characters actually do think of each other as nakama. (The characters actually do discriminate between tomodachi and nakama, too. :x) I've been using the term thus far in Nami's thoughts, but I can.. well, find a way to dance around it if need be? DDDD;

Anyway, this has been SOOOOOOOOOO helpful. Thank you so much for writing it up \o/!! It was also rather amusing |D

[hughes]

Court and I actually already joked discussed how the One Piece players would never give up nakama unless we pried it from your collective cold, dead fingers, so GO AHEAD, nakama can stay. 8D;

[Moved to over here]

[secret-orchard.livejournal.com]

This will confuse Armand for a little while, but I think I understand. He's one of those bilingual people (primary Frency with learned English), though Baroness Orczy made it very difficult to figure out just how much English he knows. I've had to assume he was reasonably fluent at least in vocabulary since he was prepared to move permanently to England.

The hard part for me is since I've played him so long elsewhere I write his dialog different when he's being magically translated, and then figuring out that no one will ever hear him speaking French even if he understands it spoken to him by people who learned it secondarily will probably be a blow to him. He's been conciously speaking English so far, so finding people who don't understand him who used to will be all that confuses him. The rest is all me. *holds head* This affects the speed and pattern of how he speaks.

But congratulations on making it clear how it works. I'm pretty sure I understand it.

This won't bother Saetan since he thinks everyone is speaking in whatever it is they speak where he's from. Oh, wait. His native language is Hayllian, which he doesn't normally use. I only accidentally learned that the other day in re-reading something. He started cursing in Hayllian, which Lucivar only barely understood since he didn't grow up in Hayll, but they were obviously speaking something else the rest of the time, though I have no idea what. So his native language is something different than what he's been using. So is he going to have to switch to Hayllian?

Re: [Moved to over here]

[hughes]

Oof, hope the changes aren't too much for you (or Armand) to handle! D:

I'm not really familiar with the Black Jewels Trilogy save for what I've gathered from the apps, (funny story: I actually OWN ALL THREE BOOKS as a gift from a friend, though I've never gotten around to reading more than a tiny portion of the first one) but is there a common language he usually speaks with his canonmates in the series - like Daemon and Jaenelle, or a common language used by that world in general? If so, he definitely doesn't need to switch to his native language or anything - you can just make his main language whatever it is he generally uses to communicate with in his canon. :3

[moon-brained.livejournal.com]

I've been saying Silver Crystal instead of Ginzoushoopdewhoop because even after almost 10 years of Sailor Moon I never remember how to spell it, but can the Sailor Moon people keep saying Senshi or should they switch to Warrior/Soldier/...Scout?

[hughes]

I think senshi can stay, given that pretty much everyone uses it in regards to the Sailor Moon girls, and... it'd be weird to force you to do otherwise. 8D;

[psyches]

I still need to reread this section a couple of times to fully understand it, but is it possible for players to include the main/secondary/etc. language information on the userinfo along with the rest (name, height, etc.)? It would really help, IMO.

[uruz-vii.livejournal.com]

Totally seconded! D:

And it's really weird to type that while logged into this journal... XDDD

[ivan.livejournal.com]

thanks for explaining it so well; seems simple enough to me so far~ i just have.. one question (maybe two?) here.

this is probably just me being paranoid, but i'm going to ask just in case.

in the GL universe it's never specified what language they're actually speaking, but their written language is almost like a combination of english and romanized japanese written with a highly modified version of the roman alphabet (http://img300.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rittonarexampleyn3.jpg) (the chart in that picture is wrong in a few places, but it's the best i have on this computer, ehehe).

since there seem to be three different languages working in conjuction here, i'm a little unsure as to what to assume as the default language?

[melting.livejournal.com]

ARE YOU THE SIMON APPER

[knightless.livejournal.com]

....I find it both amusing and somewhat frightening that that was how I assumed languages worked here to begin with. >>;

Though, um, quick question. ^^; Since the world in which Nakago exists is based in a stylized version of China (and it's stated by both Miaka and Yui that the Universe of the Four Gods book is written in Chinese), Nakago's primary language is Chinese (Miaka and Yui just heard everything in Japanese and the book characters heard them speak in Chinese). With that taken into account, do you want me to use the Chinese equivalents for place names since I do know them (thank you, English manga) or is Konan, Kutou, etc. okay to use when referring to places?

[hughes]

YOU KNOW, I was wondering if I should address the Fushigi Yuugi situation in the WHAT IF section, seeing as uh... they kind of work with a similar language situation in that series anyway. 8D;

Anyway, I think that you could probably declare Chinese as Nakago's main language but still use the Japanese equivalents (I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN; I read the Viz manga volumes too >_>) for practicality's sake.

[theladyfeylene.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's...very complex and I honestly can admit I need to reread that a whole bunch of times before I understand it.

ETA: Nevermind, it was explained to me! Fey Fey needs short sentences and small paragraphs to grasp new ideas.

[hughes]

DDDD: ::shrinks:: I WISH I WAS MORE CONCISE, REALLY. Was just trying to cover everything in detail. Anyway, glad that someone was able to do a better job than me. T_T;

[stopcounting.livejournal.com]

Would a character find it unusual that everyone speaks their language? For instance, a Japanese character who finds it odd that so many non-Japanese speak Japanese, or an English-speaker that finds it odd to be surrounded by a disproportionate number of Japanese people who speak perfectly fluent English, although they might admit to being from Japan? Or should characters not notice that, for smoother flow?

I reread it a few times, but I'm sorry if this was covered and I missed it. It's quite early.

[stopcounting.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see now! Just assume it's caused by Landel's magic. Ignore that question. :)

[subversive.livejournal.com]

*mumble mumble* FFVII *mumble* Shinra *mumble mumble* Mako reactors *mumble* Wall Market *mumble mumble* war with Wutai *mumble* Shinra

.... *hangs head in shame* I'll just carry on as usual, shall I? Yes. Good thing I haven't used any Japanese at all with Kadaj. |D; And the shinigami thing is mentioned already in regards to Bleach, sooooo... there we go. I will not go into a length ramble about FFVII, I swear. Somehow. They mentioned they had different languages on Gaia anyway. I'm still fucking confused about... Shinra, Mako reactors, and... whatnot. NEVERMIND. It has like no bearing at all on the language situation at Landel's so I'll just shut up now.

... But then all the signs in Edge were in English. BUT THE MAKO REACTORS WERE NUMBERED IN JAPANESE, GODDAMNIT. AND SHINRA COMPANY'S LOGO HAS THE FUCKING JAPANESE CHARACTERS FOR "SHINRA." WHAT THE HELL NATIONALITY IS RUFUS, ANYWAY? I'M SO CONFUSED. AND THERE WERE BUILDING IN WALL MARKET THAT HAD JAPANESE ON THEM I think. Wait a minute... WELL, ANYWAY. Yeah, I'm just being weird. Still, it really is weird, isn't it? And if Wutai is supposed to be like Japan, then wtf is that because they were at war with them andasdljdglkj SHUTTING UP NOW I SWEAR.

[laverinth.livejournal.com]

lol You say this like things in Final Fantasy are actually supposed to make sense. XDD

[multiweapon.livejournal.com]

I understand the rules for the most part, and I wanted to commend you both for putting thought into it instead of just going the blanket-English path.

Though I did have an off-hand and very fandom-specific question. In the G.U. Series, a lot of times they do use emotes in dialogue. Like when someone in the games laugh, the subtitles simply read "LOL". Or when someone goes "Mmm!" in an agreeing way, the subtitles will read ":)". I was wondering how that would work into language laws. If it was a universal concept and could be understood by everyone, or if it was only understood by people from a certain era...or what. (Because I don't think I'd ever whip out an LOL in a third person post, I mean this more toward the first person type way.) Its not really that important or vital, I just was curious in case it comes up later.

[hughes]

Glad you like the new standards! :D

Hmm... best thing to do in that scenario is probably leave the emotes out of the third-person prose, yeah, and then run free with all that chat lingo in the first-person posts? Whether or not the other characters would understand the emotes and chat abbreviations would probably just depend on how much exposure they've had to computers/modern technology.

[theangstmonkey.livejournal.com]

Man, the mun who wrote that last and final ONE application must be a real loser... XD

I am horribly amused by it, actually. Seriously.

[hughes]

NO, THEY MUST CERTAINLY BE AWESOME AND PATIENT. <3

Amusement is better than ANNOYANCE? ._.

[flashyaudacity]

Loved the illustrations! XD

I think I understand the rules, but I have a few questions about the bit about translating generic titles that are "specific military/company/social ranks, family relationships, etc," mainly in general (and somewhat related to the question about titles in Bleach), but illustrated with examples from the Detective Conan canon...

As far as familial terms are concerned, Edogawa Conan (for instance) uses "neechan" (sister), "niichan" (brother), etc., as suffixes for names a lot. It's part of his act of pretending to be a seven-year-old, and he sometimes slips and calls people that are "older" than him by just their names, without the suffix. Something like "Ran-neechan" or "Heiji-niichan" can be translated, but it sounds sort of awkward in English ("sister Ran," "brother Heiji")... They're familial terms, but what's the rule in such a case, since someone like Ran would notice if Conan slipped and called her "Ran" without the suffix? Should they be translated, left as-is, or just left out?

A lot of other titles are used as suffixes, but they can be translated in a way that doesn't sound horribly awkward (eg, "Nakamori-keibu" sounds okay as "Inspector Nakamori," even if it loses the reference to being a police rank). However, some characters refer to others with a title and an honorific; for example, Mouri has called Megure on occasion both "Megure-keibu-dono" and just "keibu-dono"... Something like "Megure-keibu-dono" could be shifted around easily enough ("Inspector Megure-dono"), but when refering to someone by a title and honorific without a name present, translating the title and leaving the honorific sounds as weird as "sister Ran" (eg, "inspector-dono" or "detective-kun")...

So... what's the verdict?