Romanisation (E/J)

[Stephen Cremin]

Correction: That's "Joe Shishido [Shishido J?]" (with macron) or "Joe 
Shishido [Shishido Jo]" (without macron) at the end of the second 
paragraph, of course.

Stephen


On Wednesday, Mar 12, 2003, at 14:29 Europe/London, Stephen Cremin 
wrote:

> 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 J? to call himself 
> "Joe", but this would be rendered as Joe Shishido, as in Joe Shishido 
> J? or rather  "Joe Shishido [Shishido J?]".  I also have huge problems 
> with Kud? Y?ki and would suggest "Kudou Youki [K?do Y?ki]".  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 [Kud? Y?ki]", "Shishido [Shishido J?]" and "George 
> Matsuoka [Matsuoka J?ji]".
>
> 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:
>>
>>> ???????????????????
>>>
>>> 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
>>
>