Forum - View topicHiroaki Goda?Gohda?Gouda?
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The Spatula
 Posts: 163 |
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This topic was somewhat covered in the "Ito" post, but my concern is slightly different. Right now, there are two separate entries for the director of the Aa! Megamisama Movie and the character designer for Onegai Teacher when they are in fact the same person.
I noticed this when I tried to enter information for Hiroaki Gouda and saw the verification led me to two distinct entries for Hiroaki Gohda and Hiroaki Goda. I prefer Gouda myself, but I don't want to create a third entry; that would be misleading as it would imply that there are 3 distinct people with similar names. Are there any standards that you would like us to use when romanizing Japanese names? Also, how does one correct misleading info such as this? |
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist
 Posts: 3782 Location: Montreal |
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Darn! Sorry, I pushed back answering this and then I forgot about it.
*Dan42 hits himself with his inflatable baka-hammer* And the reason I pushed back answering is that this question opens the huge can of worms known as "long vowels". We curently have not decided on a policy concerning how long vowels should be handled when romanizing Japanese names. Goda is incorrect since it doesn't indicate the long vowel at all, but Gohda, Gouda and Gôda are all acceptable romanizations. And in fact, throughout the encyclopedia you'll find that all of them have been used for different names. Personally, my preferred spelling would be Hiroaki Gôda, just like the IMDb. But apparently accents pose a problem to many english speakers. And even without considering that, not everyone agrees on what is the "best" romanization method. I'd be happy to have a discussion about this if it can result in some kind of policy. Because as it is, the way Japanese names are romanized is semi-random, and that's kinda sloppy. 
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Ramen
 Posts: 346 Location: San Jose |
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Personally, I like using the 'u' to indicate long vowals (Gouda) because when writing names in hiragana, the japanese use the character for the 'u' sound to indicate te long vowel. So, it is more accurate in my opinion.
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist
Posts: 3782 Location: Montreal |
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Yeah, in a way that method of romanization is "closer to the original". But only in a literal sense; it doesn't reflect the actual sound used in Japanese. And sometimes it doesn't work... would you really use Toukyou instead of Tokyo? Katsuhiro Outomo instead of Katsuhiro Otomo? And I believe it's important that whatever system we use, we should use it *consistently*
But even the "ô" I prefer isn't 100% correct. It should be a macron (a small horizontal bar) instead of a circumflex, but I can't find any way to write a macron with my keyboard! I guess the same problem applies to most english speakers who can't write macrons OR circumflexes with their keyboard (I use the French Canadian layout so it's easy for me to type a circumflex) Here are two articles that help to build an idea of the mess we're in: http://antares7.prettyodango.net/articles/romanization/ http://www.cic.sfu.ca/tqj/JapaneseStudy/romaji.html[/list] |
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Ramen
Posts: 346 Location: San Jose |
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Okay, I see what you mean. From what it looks like, when I learned I was taught the Hepburn method for romaji. It seems so natural to me so I guess that is why I prefer it. I personally don't get confused, but I can see how others/non-speakers may get it mixed up. However, I know I can't easily put the accents over the vowels (although not impossible ô), so because of that I still think the long "u" is the better option. At least it makes more sense to me than the long "h"
P.S. I can't find the "o" with a line on top either! |
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Ramen
Posts: 346 Location: San Jose |
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Oh, by the way, I do sometimes find myself spelling it "Toukyou" and it's Devil Hunter Youko dammit!
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Dan42
Chief Encyclopedist
Posts: 3782 Location: Montreal |
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Well, my teachers sidestepped the whole romanization issue by teaching directly with hiragana. So I tend to see all romanization methods as more-or-less equal and imperfect ways of approximating Japanese.
As for the "oh" spelling, I rather like it because it's closer to the sound of the Japanese long vowel. Of course, it has the HUGE disadvantage that if you use it before a vowel, people would be misled into thinking it was an h- sound. i.e. they would read oha as o-ha instead of oh-a |
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The Spatula
Posts: 163 |
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That reminds me of something... I recently noticed that in Kanno Yoko, Yoko is spelled in Japanese with two hiragana letters "yo-u" next to a kanji "ko". I realize that it is romanized as simply Yoko rather than Youko practically everywhere, but it bothers me that such a glaring inconsistency is everywhere. As for writing systems, I suppose I prefer the Hepburn system myself since that is what I am used to. |
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Case
Posts: 1016 |
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My 2¢:
To put it simply, I think that trying to establish a standard romanization method is nothing more than a waste of time. It think it would be much better in a case like this to just go with what is most widely accepted, or what is printed in the credits of official translations as often as possible. We are bound to come across words that do not fit any rigid system we might select, and that most people will not recognize if we apply our system, like Dan42's example of "Toukyou". I think it is also inevitable that we will come across instances of names or titles that the owners/creators specifically choose to have romanized a certain way, which would render our spellings totally incorrect. And I'm sure there are many more possible situations where such a problem would occur. As such, I think that doing the extra detective work and using the best known or most official spellings is really the absolute best we can do. Our resident lingual experts might have to pool their knowledge and subjectively select an official spelling in some cases, but that would probably be necessary in just about any romanization system. And besides, romanji is only a middle ground between two incompatible languages. It is not a language in and of itself, and expecting it to work that way is too much to ask IMO. It's supposed to give us an idea of what is being said in a writing system unfamiliar to us, and I think it serves that purpose well enough. If we want to be brutally strict about spelling, we should be writing in kana as was intended by the creators of the Japanese language. From a purely academic standpoint, I suppose that does seem rather frivilous and unscientific. But if you consider the fact that the data in the Encyclopedia is being compiled there to provide a resource to fans of the medium, it seems like a perfectly logical thing to do. I think so, anyway.
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The Spatula
Posts: 163 |
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You do raise some good points...
However, I don't think it wastes any more time to set a standard than it does to extensively research different spellings of the same name to find the most common romanization. In my Kanno Yoko example, it is pretty obvious that everywhere you look on the web you will find it spelled without the u, but in the case of Gouda it has been shown that four different spellings are easily available. I do agree that either method takes long but you miss the original point of my first post - I saw two different entries for the same person, but neither of them was one that I considered correct. It does cause a bit of confusion when one person is listed as three different people. Perhaps a page, which is easily accessible, that explains the system of romanization used in this database would be useful to show newcomers looking for info or serve as a suggestion for people entering things into the encyclopedia. Also, if there is an "official" way of spelling a person's name (for instance on an official webpage or such), people should make sure they use that rather than anything else. Alternate spellings could be listed too so that people who recognize it one way would be able to find who they're looking for. Of course, this is where the extra research may come in to make sure we are indeed talking about the same person. Of course, one should beware when it comes to fan sites since it has been shown in the link Dan42 provided that these sites are sometimes inconsistent and/or wrong. Last edited by The Spatula on Fri Sep 20, 2002 5:25 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Ramen
Posts: 346 Location: San Jose |
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Perhaps don't restict it to a single method and implement it like the "also known as" anime tiles? So, include any spelling and just have all of them linked to the same page.
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