Romanisation (E/J)

[Stephen Cremin]

With macrons:
===
Over the years, I've eventually came around to Aaron's view of thinking 
on romanisation of film titles.  Where I disagree is with people's 
names.  In the same way that a Hong Kong star has a chosen English 
name, I think one should "allow" Shishido Jō to call himself "Joe", but 
this would be rendered as Joe Shishido, as in Joe Shishido Jō or rather 
  "Joe Shishido [Shishido Jō]".  I also have huge problems with Kudō 
Yūki and would suggest "Kudou Youki [Kūdo Yūki]".  I think you have to 
respect chosen English names where they're known.  It's a form of 
professional title.

It's useful to look at other Asian territories.  What do you do with a 
HK actress like Carina Lau Ka-ling who was born in China as Liu 
Jialing?  Is it Carina Liu or Carina Lau, respecting the Cantonese 
pronunciation?  There are different romanisation systems for mainland 
China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, but the industry has historically been 
very fluid with actors and directors sometimes working in all three 
territories.  In academic texts, one would probably write "Carina Lau 
[Liu Jialing]".  And that makes sense for me also when it comes to 
"Kudou Youki [Kudō Yūki]", "Shishido [Shishido Jō]" and "George 
Matsuoka [Matsuoka Jōji]".

Likewise, Korean actress Hwang Shin-hye was for a time insisting on 
Hwang Cine and now has settled on Hwang Sine, but without hangul both 
would be meaningless to a Korean reader.  So, like Kudou Youki one can 
indulge her as long as one brackets a "correct" reading in academic 
texts: "Hwang Sine [Hwang Shin-hye]".  At least Japanese has a widely 
accepted romanisation system in modified Hepburn, something that Korean 
and Cantonese lacks.

Stephen

===
And without macrons:
===
Over the years, I've eventually came around to Aaron's view of thinking 
on romanisation of film titles.  Where I disagree is with people's 
names.  In the same way that a Hong Kong star has a chosen English 
name, I think one should "allow" Shishido Jo to call himself "Joe", but 
this would be rendered as Joe Shishido, as in Joe Shishido Jo or rather 
  "Joe Shishido [Shishido Jo]".  I also have huge problems with Kudo 
Yuki and would suggest "Kudou Youki [Kudo Yuki]".  I think you have to 
respect chosen English names where they're known.  It's a form of 
professional title.

It's useful to look at other Asian territories.  What do you do with a 
HK actress like Carina Lau Ka-ling who was born in China as Liu 
Jialing?  Is is Carina Liu or Carina Lau, respecting the Cantonese 
pronunciation?  There are different romanisation systems for mainland 
China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, but the industry has historically been 
very fluid with actors and directors sometimes working in all three 
territories.  In academic texts, one would probably write "Carina Lau 
[Liu Jialing]".  And that makes sense for me also when it comes to 
"Kudou Youki [Kudo Yuki]", "Shishido [Shishido Jo]" and "George 
Matsuoka [Matsuoka Joji]".

Likewise, Korean actress Hwang Shin-hye was for a time insisting on 
Hwang Cine and now has settled on Hwang Sine, but without hangul both 
would be meaningless to a Korean reader.  So, like Kudou Youki one can 
indulge her as long as one brackets a "correct" reading in academic 
texts: "Hwang Sine [Hwang Shin-hye]".  At least Japanese has a widely 
accepted romanisation system in modified Hepburn, something that Korean 
and Cantonese lacks.

Stephen


PS: For those running the latest operating system on a Macintosh 
computer, Jaguar, include the built-in Hawaiian keyboard on the 
menu-bar.  In Unicode applications, one then just needs to hold down 
the ALT key to render macrons above vowels.



On Wednesday, Mar 12, 2003, at 14:13 Europe/London, Ono Seiko and Aaron 
Gerow wrote:

> I'm enjoying this little discussion.
>
> But again I'm not convinced myself. Take Tom's example:
>
>> 新・第三の極道　勃発　関西極道ウォーズ
>>
>> as: Shin Daisan No Gokudo Boppatsu Kansai Gokudo Wars.
>
> True, this is unweildy, but for a reader who doesn't know Japanese,
> rendering the last word Wars or Uozu is not going to make much of a
> difference. Such a reader would want the English and if we are trying 
> to
> avoid the unweildy, we should provide it even if we are doing the
> translating ourselves. The fact is that there are tens of thousands of
> films in Japanese film history, only a tiny fraction of which have ever
> been given English release titles. To talk about these in English
> language texts we just have to make up a translation on our own
> (preferably checking beforehand to see if anyone else has made up an
> English title--again for consistency). Perhaps one can note in a 
> footnote
> that one has done this, but I assume this is a much kinder way of
> accommodating the reader than just giving them Wars over Uozu in a long
> Japanese romanized title. Again, the romanized title can just be used 
> on
> first citation or in the filmography.
>
> By the way, some editors specify that, in figuring out romanization, 
> one
> should follow the Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary. That, in
> some ways, is the bible for modified-Hepburn.
>
>
>
> Aaron Gerow
> Associate Professor
> Yokohama National University
>