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REMs

Discussion in 'Japanese Secessionist Army' started by Cartographer, Mar 29, 2018.

  1. Cartographer

    Cartographer Well-Known Member

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    So, does anyone have accurate translations into Japanese for the REMs?
    While Husong and Weibing seem to carry over to Gosou and Eihei well enough, Chaiyi doesn't seem to have an equivalent meaning, and Son-Bae isn't Chinese (apparently it's Korean) so I have no idea how to write it down.
    Japanese likes to use the "rimouto" for remote, so a little digging turns up Enkaku (Yaokong doesn't look to translate across very well).

    Lu Duan shifts to the Japanese equivalent Shin-You (depressingly "God-Sheep").
    Rui Shi equivalent seems to be Shishi (just "Lion") or Komainu (which at least is "Lion Dog") but they are technically different things and often come as a pair guarding temples.

    I really want to use Jidou-Heiki for remote weapon, but for consistency (and because jidou is "automatic" rather than "remote") Enkaku-Heiki seems better.

    The best I can manage with the Pangguling is Tokage (assuming that it is in fact a pidgin version of Pangolin). Enkaku-shiyounin for remote servant, Yaupu.

    Yaozao looks to be Enkaku-Nomi.
     
  2. meikyoushisui

    meikyoushisui Competitor for Most Ignored User

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    The problem with enkaku-heiki is that it makes it sound as if the weapon is remote and not just the pilot. If I heard enkaku heiki I would think of long distance weapons. And jidou-heiki makes them sound autonomous -- I think at most, REMs are just semi-autonomous.

    Rimooto is more likely.
     
  3. Cartographer

    Cartographer Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, but I get unnaturally annoyed at loan word usage when an equivalent exists (the name "Rainbow Bridge" literally stopped me in my tracks when I heard it) and sounds bettwr
     
  4. meikyoushisui

    meikyoushisui Competitor for Most Ignored User

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    There's not an equivalent that means "remotely operated machine unit." Even the way we use that word in English is only specific to this game.

    And are you a Japanese speaker? I am, and the loanword sounds better and more accurate to me. Japanese is constantly borrowing words from other languages -- even a lot of the "native" vocabulary is just borrowed from Chinese. For example, both the compounds you created above are made of Sino-Japnese vocabulary.
     
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  5. Cartographer

    Cartographer Well-Known Member

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    My dislike of loan words stems mostly from them being on the whole less accurate and used to sound "cool" rather than convey explicit meaning. They often sound jarring to me when I hear them.
    Kidou is probably better than jidou, and thinking about it, is used to mean "mobile" in "mobile suit(warrior)" Gundam.
     
  6. meikyoushisui

    meikyoushisui Competitor for Most Ignored User

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    Howso? Is any definition of "Remote" in English accurate to the definition of a remote in Infinity? There's this thing with loanwords called "semantic shift/drift" where the meanings of the word in the new language changes from the original. Here's a recent paper that opens with a discussion of the way "image/imeeji" shifted from English to Japanese. It is a mistake to believe meanings do not change with loanwords. I mean, even look at the way we use the word anime here (just Japanese animation) versus anime there (a catch all for any animation.)

    This is because you are an English speaker and not a Japanese speaker, and you are injecting elements of the language you already know into what you "think" words should mean in Japanese. This is also one of the reasons English speakers are horrible at pronouncing English loanwords in Japanese -- they try to use the pronunciation they "feel like" a word should have due to their native tongue rather than the pronunciation the word actually has. (This isn't limited to English speakers of course, it's just that Japanese has far more English loan vocabulary than any other language, discounting Sino-Japanese compounds.)

    Kidou (機動)
    generally refers to movements made by the military in accomplishing a strategy. "Manuevers" is usually given as a translation. The translation used in Gundam is less common. The most closely related Japanese word is a loanword of the English "manuever" and refers specifically to kidou-ing airplanes or spacecraft.
     
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  7. Pierzasty

    Pierzasty Null-Space Entity

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    "senpai" :P

    not even kidding
     
  8. Cartographer

    Cartographer Well-Known Member

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    Yes, of course it is. The term "Remote" fits semiautonomous mechanical units just fine, it may be a contraction of the Remote Presence moniker, or refer to the ability to operate remotely, or refer to the separation between the unit an the controlling mind etc. I certainly had no issue immediately linking the word to the unit type.
    The fact we'd use "Drone" nowadays thanks to the direction military tech and naming conventions has gone doesn't make the name CB chose any less appropriate.

    I'm well aware, it's a concept you have to get your head around no matter what language you're learning; English itself is absolutely littered with similar loan words (just ask a French what they think of some of the mangling we've done to their language over the years). Thankyou for the link, I'll take some time over the weekend to read and digest it properly, but just from the abstract I'm sure i'll find it fascinating.

    Oh I agree, I have little issue with reading hiragana/kanji combinations (hell, kanji are easy once you understand what they do) but the odd shift to katakana (and the third alphabet) just jars. I know it's a combination of dissonance between what the different meanings of the word are in my head, the lack of practice I generally have with katakana, the struggle to not attempt to read the surface word in English and simply recall it's meaning in Japanese...
    But then we have wonders like eigo (英語) for English (language), but igirisu (イギリス) for England (country), when eikoku (英国) exists (though I believe that is shifting in meaning to encompass the UK as a whole now at least). The lack of consistency is infuriating (lol, an English speaker complaining about lack of consistency in another language) and exasperating (nothing like *knowing* what a word means only to have to relearn a different meaning when used in another language, often in the same context).

    That's why I think Kidou-heiki works in the context of the Lu Duan and Rui Shi, but not with the others.
    While I haven't read the Uprising book's background, the fact the uprising is led by die-hard nationalists makes me think the "new" Japanese faction would hesitate to use loanwords unless absolutely necessary.
     
  9. EDOCGenKip

    EDOCGenKip Member
    Warcor

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    Whelp, good ole Imperial Japanese army called their remote demolitions vehicle Enkaku Soujuu Kizai (emphasis on distinct words mine). The Infinity Japanese seem to be reminiscing Imperial Japan pretty hard, so perhaps drawing something from enkakusoujuu seems appropriate. I will admit that I don't use enkaku or soujuu colloquially, at all, so they both sound awkward to me XD. Jidou makes it sound piloted directly, like a car, hah.
     
  10. Death

    Death Well-Known Member

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    Do you speak Japanese?
     
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