Japanised Names of Vormain from Takehiro OHYA on 1995-02-11 (Glorantha Digest Vol 01)

From: Takehiro OHYA <KFC01067_at_niftyserve.or.jp>
Date: Sat, 11 Feb 1995 16:13:00 +0900

Takehiro OHYA, a Japanese, speaking.

# My name is a good example of how Japanese names are. It contains four consonant-vowel syllabaries. BTW, please don't read my family name O-HYA, but OH-YA. "H" only means that the previous "O" is a long vowel. Almost all vowel without such notice as "H" is a short one.

Alex Ferguson:
> Truls Parsson asserts that:
> > Nils Weinander has japanised the Kralorelan names.
> > Ming Tzu La (Metsyla), Ga Dong Ah (Godunya) etc.
>
> Nope, a Japanese would find these at least as unpronouncable as the
> originals, or at least, as unspellable.

Yes. These names looks like Chinese, which is far different from Japanese.
Japanese is to some extent an isolated language. The problem from where it derived isn't well solved yet. (A famous linguist of Japan even says that Japanese was came from south-india.) It is said, that Japanese is somehow similar to Mongolian, Turkish, and even Hungarian or Finnish.

I wonder the name "Mi Ka De" is somehow Japanese, because there are only symple consonant-vowel syllabaries. I suppose that Chinese has much more consonants than vowels. (like "Ming" or "Dong". There is no "-ng" consonant in Japanese.)

# Probably also because "Mi Ka De" is so much similar to "Mikado", the ancient title for Japanese "Ten'noh"(Emperor).

> So a (strictly) Japanised rendering of "Vormain" might be
> "Borumain", or "Forumain" (the "main" being pronounced "mine" rather
> than "mane").

Yes. we lack "v" sound for instance. As for "Vormain", I think God-learners kept its sound rather than spelling. Thus, "-main" will be pronounced like "mane", and its real spelling in Vormain is "Borumein" or like...
(Alex, we also lack "f" sound in native Japanese words, so your latter suppose is maybe not appropriate.)

> Areku(su).

Since it is allowed to use double consonant, your name is maybe pronounced (and spelled in Roma-ji (Japanese alphabetize system)) as "Arekkusu."

OK, here is some trial.

        Telask   ---> Telasuku
        Tsankth  ---> Sankusu, To-sankusu
        Valzain  ---> Baruzain
        Zaktirra ---> Zakutira

The problem is that the "Japanized" names makes no sense, and don't sounds like Japanese. Maybe because of the fact that for us to call gods' real name is a great taboo (like Jewish "God"). I don't remember the "real" name of Japanese greatest goddess but her title. Her title is "Amaterasu-oomikami", which means "The great god(dess) who shines the whole sky."

# But it is true that their "real" name don't make sense or sounds like Japanese, for example, "Izanagi" and "Izanami".

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Takehiro OHYA _at_ College of Arts and Sciences The Univ. of Tokyo

- --------------------------------------Jetzt zur Zeit... ist es so.

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End of Glorantha Digest V1 #138