| From: | Avenger <Avenger@*******.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Japanese Language (Words for those who know none) |
| Date: | Sat, 29 Aug 1998 13:46:37 +0100 |
100000@***.ugcs.caltech.edu>, Mach <mach@****.CALTECH.EDU> writes
>On Fri, 28 Aug 1998, Avenger wrote:
>
>> The following is only a brief coverage of various words and phrases, and
>> while hardly comprehensive, might just help a few people to add a little
>> localised colour to their characters.
>
>Grumble...grumble...mutter....
Heh - there's a surprise.
(biggus snippus)
Yes Jeff, you are correct. And although the list was long, it was by no
means comprehensive, nor did it go into detail at length concerning
gender, honorifics nor local, national, dialectic or class based
differences. I am not a linguist, nor do I write linguistic
translations for a living. For the purposes of fiction I felt it was
"acceptable", provided it was used in the spirit given and not a guide
to the Japanese language. (Perhaps I should have been clearer).
For localised character colour I don't feel that it was harmful, very
few people would attempt to construct a conversation out of what was
posted, plus there was (IMO) insufficient capability within that list to
construct a conversation. It was intended to allow "slippage" into the
language. For the list (a japanese speaking character, like German,
French whatever) might slip into a phrase, term, comment before
returning to Americanese. That was the intention of my post. Also,
with the list stored in the logs, I don't have to worry about losing it
on my drive, which has been occurring recently.
I apologise for any offence you feel has been caused to anyone who has
studied or does speak the language, that was not the intention of the
post. Unfortunately, unlike German, French, Italian, Spanish, it is
harder to construct even small sentences and comments in Japanese, and
where Shadowrun has such a heavy Far East influence running through it's
veins it's perhaps unfortunate that some of the useful little ditties
can't or aren't used. I was hoping, by the use of constructed sentences
(parables/whatever) at the end of the post, that people would get a feel
for the difficulty in using this language, keeping things simple for
their characters rather than attempting to construct an entire
conversation. In the majority of cases for this sort of usage the only
references previously available are from Hollywood interpretation, which
is questionable at best.
Anyway, as I said, no offence was intended, it was simply an offering of
some useful words and a few constructed phrases, with (I had hoped)
sufficient information concerning male/female differences, that people
would appreciate prolonged or extended use might be inadvisable.
Ho hum.
--
Avenger
http://www.shalako.demon.co.uk/index.htm
(Newbies Survival Guide to Stk & SR stuff)
http://freespace.virgin.net/p.siems/index.htm
(Shadowrun Culture Shock, and UK Survival Guide)
