Boushoku no Berserk: Ore Dake Level to Iu Gainen o Toppa Suru - Vol. 10 Ch. 51 - Unwanted Returnee.

[Ruhrpottpatriot]

I also don't really see how Tolkien's opinions on the translations of names in his own works are particularly relevant here. It's ultimately a subjective decision in this case, and many people (myself included) feel that manga typically reads better with certain parts left untranslated.

That's why I said "On the danger of making an argument from authority". However, Tolkien was a professor of English Language and Literature with a keen interest in language itself and therefore his views do hold some ground when it comes to translating, precisely because he knew how hard it is to translate anything.​

What you're failing to take into account is how well amateur translators, many of whom are not native English speakers, will localise something with so much nuance.

I'm also not a native English speaker and had to read up on all thing I stated above, when I started writing scenarios and background stories for our bi-weekly and monthly D&D sessions. I also had to translate most of then from German into English and vice versa. Even between these two very similar languages there's just something that is not translatable in any shape or form and I'm not talking about colloquial terms or proverbs.​

I have never once seen honorifics translated in a way that didn't feel jarring to some extent, and would rather they not be translated at all if that is the case.

I got into the whole stuff, because I worked in protocol for a few years and that field of work is brutal. A foreign guest doesn't care why you made the error, they just see the error. Maybe that's why I have more of an eye for that kind of stuff. But to be fair, honorifics are a linguistic construct that more often is included because it's the cultural norm, not of linguistic necessity. English for example lost the informal second person singular some three hundred years ago and "thou" now only remains in a few dialects. While this means that English has become more formal over the years, it also shows that some parts of a language are redundant in many cases and can be caught by others. We see the same thing happening currently when it comes to personal pronouns, where the usage of "they" is widely accepted instead of the more clunky "he/she" phrase. German on the other hand phased out the usage of titles for the more informal "Mr Doe", unless you're in Austria, without loosing too much clarity in written minutes.
For example, in Chapter 51 you could remove all honorifics and not loose out on information because that has been established by context in the same chapter or before.
I'd argue that in most cases honorifics serve no purpose and can be omitted unless you want to establish a certain character archetype, e.g. Kin'emon in One Piece. However, in that case the translation can follow suit and just use a more archaic version English. Thrown in a thou for the illusion of more formal speech (even if it's not the case) or let them use titles, where everybody else does not.

Translating is art, not science. Make use of the tools it provides.



Sidenote: This is something I have observed in many manga and anime, especially those of lower quality. Japanese cultural norms unconsciously slip into works that are set in medieval Europe. People bowing as greeting instead of shaking hands, swordsmen holding their weapons like it's done in Keno, instead of the European style described in Die Kunst des Fechtens. I'm not saying that anybody who wants to place their work in Medieval Europe should have a copy of KdF, but many informations are available on the internet and will get you 80% of the way, which is usually enough.
Case in point: There are works out there that do it correctly like Holy Grail or Eris or Risou no Himo Seikatsu where the word is just beautifully crafted and researched. There also exists works that have an excuse like Mushoku Tensei or Tensura, where the main character is Japanese.
However, for each one of those works, there exist dozens which just do it wrong.​

 

[meeklee]

I got into the whole stuff, because I worked in protocol for a few years and that field of work is brutal. A foreign guest doesn't care why you made the error, they just see the error. Maybe that's why I have more of an eye for that kind of stuff. But to be fair, honorifics are a linguistic construct that more often is included because it's the cultural norm, not of linguistic necessity.

I think you're misunderstanding what I meant a bit here. When I mentioned the translations I've seen being jarring, I mean things like localising honorifics on clearly Japanese names (i.e. Mr. Kenichi, to give a random example), or localising them into something that just makes no sense - kids referring to each other with Mr/Miss as was mentioned earlier, for example. There are a lot of localisations which, while grammatically correct, no native English speaker would ever say.

I don't mind when translators remove the honorifics entirely for the most part in a series like this, except where it wouldn't make sense like when speaking to a person of higher social standing - but like you mentioned, there are localisations that would work for that situation. What I do mind is when the honorifics are omitted or localised for Japanese characters (i.e. a series that is set in Japan, rather than some fantasy world), as they are used in some ways which simply do not translate into English - such as the idea of dropping honorifics when speaking to a close friend. It's possible to localise that, but not in a way that doesn't just feel clunky, and omitting the honorifics entirely removes some context on the relationship between two characters.

 

[Shinigamisama]

I'm seeing some serious discussion about honorifics. Well, all I'm wondering about is who's that knight and why do they seem to know about some things?

 

[AbsoluteEcho]

This honorific discussion is stupid, and the one calling attention to it is stupid.

"Translating is art" huh, how funny, since what you are suggesting is not translation but localization.

You are consuming japanese medias, but you want them to conform to your own self-righteouness and narrative. You said you are not a native english speaker but you certainly share their opinion on cultural imperialism.

If the original author used -sama then that is his choice, translating it to anything else is just disrespectful. If the author wanted to use "lady" then he would have already done so in the original script in katakana (レディーロキシー = lady roxy)

In short, your belief is cancer, rooted in cultural imperialism. It is not about accuracy but self-satisfaction.

 

[TakeyaMomiji]

Hey guys, ik It's been a bit late. But thank you for your patience yet again. Hope you'll love our works and if there happens to be any errors, let me know in the comments (tho i use forum rarely, my frnds will def tell me) And plz can we have a W for fish finger for his amazing tls. (often times i feel worthless as a pr ;( )

Did that Jamezz are part of your MTL? I know all your work are good but that person name Jamezz said he split from your current MTL n create a new group, if he's part from yours that means he's must be good and actually experienced but why he's so bad?

 

[meeklee]

This honorific discussion is stupid, and the one calling attention to it is stupid.

"Translating is art" huh, how funny, since what you are suggesting is not translation but localization.

You are consuming japanese medias, but you want them to conform to your own self-righteouness and narrative. You said you are not a native english speaker but you certainly share their opinion on cultural imperialism.

If the original author used -sama then that is his choice, translating it to anything else is just disrespectful. If the author wanted to use "lady" then he would have already done so in the original script in katakana (レディーロキシー = lady roxy)

In short, your belief is cancer, rooted in cultural imperialism. It is not about accuracy but self-satisfaction.

I don't disagree that the discussion is dumb, but you very clearly don't understand what cultural imperialism is, and are just parroting something a term you've heard online, just like most people I see using that term on the internet. You also seem to be incapable of making a point without including ad hominems - the irony of you then talking about respect is palpable.

It's not about respect, it's about translating/localising something that people of other languages/cultures may not understand - not everybody reading translated manga is going to have an understanding of honorifics, and I have seen several official (physical) translations with honorifics removed for this reason. Would it be disrespectful for a work written in English to have Mr. X changed into X-san for the Japanese version?

Edit: I won't bother replying on this topic again, I've already made my points.

Did that Jamezz are part of your MTL? I know all your work are good but that person name Jamezz said he split from your current MTL n create a new group, if he's part from yours that means he's must be good and actually experienced but why he's so bad?

From what I can tell, given that the TL on the Nihongo Scans version is just listed as "Staff", Jamezz probably was never a TL if he was a part of Neon and they just used machine translation.

 

[sosiick]

Please don't listen to the schizos. Anyone who reads manga should be familiarized with japanese honorifics at this point.
Don't treat readers like babies. No need to localize anything.

 

[not-mobile-guy]

Godzilla recovered from his stroke after reading this

 

[_arxen_]

Did that Jamezz are part of your MTL? I know all your work are good but that person name Jamezz said he split from your current MTL n create a new group, if he's part from yours that means he's must be good and actually experienced but why he's so bad?

We started out together as a duo and unbeknownst to me he had been doing a bunch of shit. So i left

 

[Amariithynar]

... and many people (myself included) feel that manga typically reads better with certain parts left untranslated.

unlocalized*. It's been translated from kanji/hiragana/katakana (whichever the original was written in) into romaji, at the very least.

First: Lady just refers to a woman of social superior status[1]. Using it just for "woman of noble birth", constraints the word too much, to the point of the statement being just wrong.

Except even your source notes it as the primary definition, and the etymology for the secondary aspects denotes that is modern usage (as in late 19th century and beyond) of the word as it relates to the original concept of what a noble lady was meant to be; in short, attributing the characteristics of a woman of noble birth to a woman who is not. That is also in part why it is written as for supposed "social superiors" without outright naming them as the nobility; they are much more so now the merchant and politician class, on the whole have divested themselves of the concept of noblesse oblige along with titles linked to heritage, while still retaining the power of said nobility (and if you don't believe that, just look at how lobbying works, or how politicians as a class work; the nobility never left, they just changed suits, titles, and how much they take responsibility for their rule).

 

[Wolvenworks]

Finally, some good fucking legibility

First: Lady just refers to a woman of social superior status[1]. Using it just for "woman of noble birth", constraints the word too much, to the point of the statement being just wrong.
Second: Even if the word had the meaning you state it has (which it doesn't), it would be fitting for Ellis, since she is the ruler of the country.
Furthermore, for female nobles in a formal direct address it should be "Your Majesty" for the sovereign, "Your Grace" for Dukes, "Your Ladyship" for Marquess' down to Baron's, the first time and subsequently Ma'am. Anybody else, even if they are a Lady, don't get this style, they are addressed as Dame, or Mrs/Ms

Let's take Roxy's family as an example on how to (possibly) translate honorifics. As they are apparently above the other holy knights, we therefore can assume they are equivalent to Dukes. That means, the styles of oral address for Roxy's father would be "Your Grace" the first time and then Sir. In letters it's either "Your Grace" for anyone or "My Lord Duke" for subjects of the Duke.
When announced it would be "His Grace, the Duke (of) Heart" for the father, "Her Grace, Duchess (of) Heart" as courtesy title (notice the missing article) for the mother and "Her Grace, the Duchess (of) Heart" (notice the article), for Roxy when she was the head of the house.
During the time Roxy's father was still alive, Roxy would've been styled "Lady Heart", as she is unmarried and we don't know of any other titles her father possesses. If he has such titles, Roxy would use his next lower title as curtsey title.

So, what's this all about? In Japanese, as you have stated "-sama" is often used as a "catch all" when addressing a person of higher social status. However, in Europan culture (which the work borrows heavily from) this is not necessarily the case. You can use "Lady" and "Lord" when using an indirect address, e.g. "Lady Heart" or "Lord Hausen"/"Lord Barbatos". In direct address you have to check how the relative social status between two people, but also their absolute social status.
I mean, just look at the Wiki pages "Forms of address in the United Kingdom" and "Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom" on how complicated it can get, even today.


So let's look at Chapter 51, shall we?
Page 02: Instead of "Please stay right here Mason-sama" use "Lord Mason, stay right here, please."
Page 12: Instead of "t seems Ellis-sama willl be [...]" use "t seems Lady Ellis will be returning"
Page 19: This is a bit tricky, since Memil's intention is a bit unclear. One could use "Because it's you Master Fate", with varying changes for "Master" (e.g. Maaaster).
Page 21: Another tricky one because Fate refers to his adoptive father with "-sama", which is quite unusual in European culture nowadays. Now, back in the 19th century it was common for relatives to address each other during formal occasions with "Sir" and "Ma'am". In this case I'd probably just drop the -sama alltogether and write it as "It's probably the same case as yours", given how we clearly know who is addressing whomst. Alternatively you could just use "It's probably the same case as yours, Lord Mason", if you want to keep the distant tone between Fate and his adoptive father.



It's not only overly formal, it's also (mostly) false. What most people doin't know, because they never came into contact with it, is how overly formal European culture was before the Protests of 1968. It was comparable to levels of politeness that you find in Japan today, if not even more polite. The language has the tools, they are just not widely known.
And yes, I'm purposefully refer only to europe and not "the west", because the US had it different even back then. A good rule of thumb for European culture is that people were addressed by their titles, not some indistinct suffix. This goes as far, that in protocols of that time can find protocols of company meetings without a single name in it, just titles.

As with "-sama" you need to look at the context on how to translate "-kun" and "-chan". Again, in English there is no catch all for these styles of address and the most fitting phrase can change from page to page.

On the danger of making an argument from authority: Tolkien had a hand in the translation of Lord of the Rings into German. He suggested, that German translations not use "Elf" for the elves, because in his eyes the elves were not equal to fairies (which the German word "Elf" describes) and that "Elf" was just loaned from English. The translator Margaret Carroux then used "Elb" instead of Tolkiens suggestion "Alb", because the former is, at least according to Jacob Grimm, the German cognate to elf.
Tolkien even wrote that words like Rivendell be "translate by sense, or retain as seems best," because he knew that, you simply cannot translate everything all the time and that keeping the original author's intent is more important than the accuracy of the translation. That's why he had absolutely no problems with the Swedish version translating "Shelob" (lit: She-Spider) as Honmonstret, meaning "She-Monster" and the German version using "Kranker", which is cognate to cancer, which of course has absolutely nothing to do with spiders.
Basically he said: Be as close as possible, unless you encounter something hard or untranslatable, then go by the authors intent.




tl;dr: I'm not saying that translating Japanese honorifics is easy, because it's not. I'm saying: There are possibilities for (nearly) everything.



Sources:
1: Lady - Merriam-Webster

Doth thou hath to make it an essay, sire? I am here for a manga, not a lesson on thy contrarian opinions on proper manga translation linguistics. Mayhap thou wouldst prefer to fill a butthurt report form first before thou shoveth that shoehorn on the eyes of every able-bodied passerby?

 

[demonslender]

makes sense he would be hiding there. the whole thing with the lich taking residence there was never really resolved after all.

 

[androgynous]

@meeklee yeah, we definition don't need an onii-chan when we're in an European setting or anywhere outside Japan! Brother or simple using the given name is more appropriate (depending on the era, social status, etc) but I believe it's more a "weeb thing"! even if has nothing to to with Japan, many fantasy manga are full of Japanese food, mannerism, social behaviour, wepons(katanas) and like @Ruhrpottpatriot pointed out holding swords like in kenjutsu, when any mangaka could easily find out about European martial arts with one click with the mouse!
So I don't blame the tl for chasing to keep the "usual suspects" japanese words, it's almost as it is expected from them!

 

[Tamerlane]

His dad showing up felt very soap opera-esque

 

[Amariithynar]

@meeklee yeah, we definition don't need an onii-chan when we're in an European setting or anywhere outside Japan! Brother or simple using the given name is more appropriate (depending on the era, social status, etc) but I believe it's more a "weeb thing"! even if has nothing to to with Japan, many fantasy manga are full of Japanese food, mannerism, social behaviour, wepons(katanas) and like @Ruhrpottpatriot pointed out holding swords like in kenjutsu, when any mangaka could easily find out about European martial arts with one click with the mouse!
So I don't blame the tl for chasing to keep the "usual suspects" japanese words, it's almost as it is expected from them!

Just because a setting is vaguely Medieval European doesn't mean that it has to follow everything that made it what it was in our history. That's the whole point of fantastical other worlds, isekai or otherwise. I mean, here in this world we have a post-apocalyptic-futuristic civilization left in ruins that their successors are utilizing to the best of their ability, while the rest of the world (including the rest of the city built upon the area the ruins are in) is basically feudalistic in terms of technology; most people walk or have an animal cart. Then we get something like high-tech futuristic motorcycles that can go completely vertical and retain traction. And throughout all this is a mishmash of medieval European and Japanese cultural sensibilities and concepts, as envisioned by the author. So, yeah, no. Honorifics shouldn't be localized, unless the author explicitly states they should.

 

[meeklee]

Honorifics shouldn't be localized, unless the author explicitly states they should.

Pretty sure you're replying to a misunderstanding here, or only caught the tail end of the discussion. My whole point was that honorifics should not be localised, and should either be left as-is or omitted entirely (or where appropriate just replaced with something like 'sir', for instance). It seems like some people have latched onto that whole omission point and taken that to mean that they should be localised.

100% agreed on your points on setting though. Isekai means exactly that - another world. It's not a historical view of our own world, it's one which the author has made up entirely, so there's absolutely nothing to say it has to follow our history at all. Basing every setting off of reality just gets boring.

Edit: yes I know this isn't isekai, but the point is still valid that this is a fantasy world.

 

[Amariithynar]

Pretty sure you're replying to a misunderstanding here, or only caught the tail end of the discussion. My whole point was that honorifics should not be localised, and should either be left as-is or omitted entirely (or where appropriate just replaced with something like 'sir', for instance). It seems like some people have latched onto that whole omission point and taken that to mean that they should be localised.

100% agreed on your points on setting though. Isekai means exactly that - another world. It's not a historical view of our own world, it's one which the author has made up entirely, so there's absolutely nothing to say it has to follow our history at all. Basing every setting off of reality just gets boring.

Edit: yes I know this isn't isekai, but the point is still valid that this is a fantasy world.

Er, you do know I wasn't responding to you but to Androgynous...? Also, I was involved with this conversation back in October when it was happening; I just didn't see Androgynous' November post until a recent notification had me browse the thread and see it, so I responded to it then. Additionally, "Honorifics shouldn't be localized, unless the author explicitly states they should." is my personal stance on the matter, not a retort to anything in specific.

Either way, to address what you said about your point more directly, you did say during your retort towards someone passionately defending honorifics and saying to localize them is disrespectful that, "It's not about respect, it's about translating/localising something that people of other languages/cultures may not understand - not everybody reading translated manga is going to have an understanding of honorifics, and I have seen several official (physical) translations with honorifics removed for this reason. Would it be disrespectful for a work written in English to have Mr. X changed into X-san for the Japanese version?" so I'd argue that your intent here, if it was just to explain your understanding for why localization of honorifics is done (which I heartily disagree is why, knowing what I do of localizers), is really easy to misinterpret as if it reads in defense of localizing; going by Androgynous' post in support of localization acting as if you were agreeing with them, they read it as such.

 

[meeklee]

Er, you do know I wasn't responding to you but to Androgynous...?

Yes, the post you were replying to was their misunderstanding of what I was saying - which you have also misunderstood. I was not trying to explain why localisers may or may not choose to alter honorifics (and as different localisers will have different opinions/beliefs, I can't really speak on that), I was defending the other side of the argument from somebody who clearly lacks the ability to try and actually comprehend an argument before just barging in with ad hominems (AbsoluteEcho, not you). So while I disagree with the idea that honorifics should be localised, I can at least see where the other side is coming from and was just trying to explain that and just used the opposite (EN->JP) as an example.

Just wanted to clarify since it's kind of annoying for people to just read the tail end of the discussion without context and assume that I'm all for localisation, just like Androgynous did.

 

[Amariithynar]

Yes, the post you were replying to was their misunderstanding of what I was saying - which you have also misunderstood. I was not trying to explain why localisers may or may not choose to alter honorifics (and as different localisers will have different opinions/beliefs, I can't really speak on that), I was defending the other side of the argument from somebody who clearly lacks the ability to try and actually comprehend an argument before just barging in with ad hominems (AbsoluteEcho, not you). So while I disagree with the idea that honorifics should be localised, I can at least see where the other side is coming from and was just trying to explain that and just used the opposite (EN->JP) as an example.

Just wanted to clarify since it's kind of annoying for people to just read the tail end of the discussion without context and assume that I'm all for localisation, just like Androgynous did.

I didn't misunderstand either your most recent post I replied to (prior to this one) or the original post I quoted from in that reply (I simply acknowledged that it is easy to misunderstand and showed how it could be so construed in regards to that quote); I said "you do know I wasn't responding to you" because you directed clarification of your stance towards me, instead of them. If instead you just wanted to address Androgynous' post being based on a misunderstanding, you probably should have directed it at them, and not at me, since I addressed Androgynous' post only and not yours, in that post.

I also see no difference between the concept of "explanation of how I see why they choose to do so" and "defending the other side of the argument", since they're functionally the same thing; My emphatic disagreement on why is based on the stated reason given, that of them just, "translating/localising something that people of other languages/cultures may not understand"; That is supposed to be the intent of localization (and I still think even THAT is shit; exposure to other cultures is a good thing, and often the desire of customers when getting media from said other countries), but localizers' actual intents are far from that, and they admit it openly, too; sometimes it comes from them thinking they know better than the author and editorial staff and want to change things, like Jeremy Blaustein did with MGS' script; or what Working Designs did, where they proudly spoke about getting a rough draft translation and throwing out the original script to then write their own completely different work atop the original; however, it most often comes from a sense of "your culture is bad so I'll replace it with my own" (aka cultural imperialism; it's just a two word phrase to convey the concept of one cultural group imposing or exporting various aspects of its own way of life onto another cultural group, and arguably those first two examples could also be examples of this), like the infamous alterations that Funimation has done over the years with things like Ghost Stories, Dragon Maid, and Prison School, amongst others; or what Nintendo Treehouse did with Fire Emblem (across multiple games) both in actively removing game mechanics and shitting all over the dialogue with stale memes, political views, and more; and so on and so forth. It's only very early localization efforts, like those done under Woolsey, that were more about having to deal with restricted space on the cartridges and so they needed to rewrite some things just so that dialogue and UI in general would actually fit within the code (though there was still plenty of censorship done as part of localization, especially with regards to religion).