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Beecham
Wind In The Grass
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 Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 11:01 pm Post subject: Japanese for Foreign and Domestic... |
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...And what they tell us about language in the Suikoden world!
This began as an inoccuous conversation on another forum about the existance of items in the American version of the Suikoden world that seemed to be rather... well... disjoint with the setting. Most notably a number of the food items from the various games have names of nations of Earth in their titles.
SARS pointed out then that in the Japanese version, they'll use perhaps foreign or domestic as the words in the food name. Since I can't get Japanese characters into the posts on my own, allow me to quote:
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| The Japanese version mentions 和風 "wafuu" (domestic) and 洋風 "yofuu" (western) so they don't directly mention nationalities. However, it certainly won't make sense in the context of Suikoden. |
I hope the forum displays that properly. Anyway, to sumarize the next few posts [mostly me not recognizing the yo in yofuu and needing clarification], I started to make the argument that the words wafuu and yofuu work very well in the setting of Suikoden.
Wa, in Japanese [at least the above wa, anyway], is the old name for Japan. Well, that's not precisely accurate; that -character- is the old name for Japan, but the reading [pronunciation] for it was different. I'm digressing. The point is, it's used to mean domestic because it stands for Japan, but it also has another meaning: harmony.
Think for a moment about what we know about Suikoden history. Aronia ruled... some amount of space, we can assume on the main continent of which we are aware. Supposedly modern Harmonia encompasses parts of two continents but we only know of the one. I'm going to assume that it is there that Aronia was. Why? Because the first Harmonian capitol was in the city which later became Gregminster.
It seems that the people of the Scarlet Moon Empire, the City-States of Jowston, Highland and Harmonia all speak one language. Makes sense, since at one point all or most of that area was under Harmonian control. It would -seem- that the same holds true of the region displayed in GS3, but it -is- possible they speak another language, and it happens that the few carryovers from GS2 to GS3 know both languages. Bilingualism is not that uncommon, especially outside of, you know, the US. Assumption number 2: either the Grasslands does speak another language from the rest and people like Futch and Nash and all the characters from Harmonia know this language, OR the Grasslands speaks the same language as the aforementioned nations. Correlary, I'm assuming that just because the Empire becomes the Toran Republic and the City-States and Highland become Dunan, they keep the same language.
I'm going to call this language Harmonian. Why? It makes sense. As I said, the majority of the region covered by the first group of nations used to all belong to Harmonia.
Back to Japanese for a moment. Wa means harmony. This is, in all likelihood, a complete coincidence. Do I care? Nope! Not in the least ;) In fact, I'm capitalizing on the coincidence for all it's worth! So domestic, in Harmonian, seems to fit pretty well. The fuu, by the way, is wind, but also means style [something I forgot when posting on the original topic].
Putting that together, the names of some of the foods in Suikoden are "harmonious style." Or "Harmonian style." Works for me.
The yo in yofuu is ocean. Ocean style is a bit of a stretch, but bear with me. Think about the language being Harmonian. Harmonia pretty much controlled most of the continent. So foreign, to them, really would have meant across the ocean. Not quite as true as with, say, Japan, but not far off either.
All this works entirely by one coincidence, but I dunno about you, but I'm going with it. Any thoughts? :) |
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kuwaizair
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| Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2004 12:26 pm Post subject: |
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I think I uderstand.
this is cool, maybe you can write an editoral with somone.
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sybillious
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| Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2004 1:01 pm Post subject: |
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it could be similar to the worlds in d & d where each race speaks its own language, then use common, a language used by all when interacting with other races, born out of necessity for trading *i'd guess that human language would be common, since they are the most abundant and widespread.*
it could be much the same in the suikoverse; different areas/races have their own language, but use a 'common speech' to interact with others-it seems a sensible solution.
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Beecham
Wind In The Grass
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| Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2004 2:58 pm Post subject: |
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Heh, that would actually work for when I make the Suikoden d20 game I'm working on. I never thought of it that way.
Basically this makes most people in the Suikoden world bilingual. I wonder though if some of the newer nations like SME/Toran or Highland/Dunan's High East would have their own language, given that they were only part of Harmonia until very recently. Dunan, on the other hand, and thus the City-States of Jowston, might, because Dunan existed for a very long time without Harmonian rule of any sort.
I would assume, too, that Kobolds, Dwarves, Elves, Nekobolds, Wingers [SARS, is that honestly what they're called in Japan?], Mermaids, Duck People [same with this oen?] and Lizard people [here too?] each have their own languages. It only makes sense; they are phisiologically different, and probably find their own language more comfortable on their voice box when speaking to their own people. *ponders if he missed any races in alla that*
What do people think of the "common" language being Harmonian, itself likely being Aronian except for a few small changes here or there? Does that sound like a feasible assumption?
*happies that his thread finally got responses* *dances* |
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Matheau
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| Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 8:29 am Post subject: |
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I can see where the other races have different languages, but I really can't say whether the different human factions would.
The game uses a lot of words from other languages in the names of weapons and other items, but that is rather normal in games. It adds a lot to the flavor of the game, but I really don't think it is supposed to signify different languages.
Of course, it may very well do so. It will be hard to say, since I really don't think they are ever going to really push any sort of language issue in Suikoden, except maybe between races and that is kind of a big maybe. |
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