Score.

[tj_dragonblade]

Hah! He ate, finally, the stubborn little f*cker!

Still can't figure out his name - too spastic for a Homura, Ukoku/Kenyuu/Nii or Eclipse; too angry for an Ares, too sullen for a Panther, just...not an Aku - but at least he ate!

...if 'hakuryu' is 'white dragon', I wonder what 'black dragon' would be...?

Comments

[deathlike.livejournal.com]

Kuroryuu

[tj-dragonblade.livejournal.com]

Oh! Thanks!

Hm. I don't know if it fits him, but...hm.

Thank you.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Umm- it's more likely to be Kokuryuu, actually. Two-kanji Japanese words usually have Chinese reading plus Chinese reading (Hakuryuu) or Japanese reading plus Japanese reading (Takahashi, say.) Kuroi is the JR for black, while ryuu is the CR for dragon. (There is a JR but I've never seen it used. People just say ryuu.) So it would make more sense to use the Chinese reading of the 'black' character rather than the Japanese one, especially since Hakuryuu uses two CRs...

if that makes any sense? I keep forgetting how complicated this language looks when you first meet it.

(Odd sidenote: oolong, the tea, (wulong in pinyin) is written with the hanzi for crow-dark and dragon. It's called black dragon tea though it has nothing to do with dragons. The wu part is the same as Ukoku's u.)

[tj-dragonblade.livejournal.com]

It does make sense, yes, and...it kind of flows better, phonetically. I'm assuming that pronunciation would follow the same pattern as Hakuryuu? As far as which syllable takes the emphasis, and the way that the 'ryuu' tends to be said so quickly as to sound blended into a single syllable...

Hm. I kinda like that, so far as fish-names go.

Thanks. ^_^

'This comment tells me more about Japanese than I wanted to know...'

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Same as Hakuryuu, yes, stress on the first syllable. (Mandatory disclaimer: It's-not-really-stress-it's-a-high-pitch-accent, but it sounds like a stress to us.)

Ryuu actually *is* a single phonic sound in Japanese. ^_^ It's only us who pronounces it ri-yuu because English does and it gets disconcerting after a bit. The Ki-o-to Agreement? Ohh- Kyoto- two syllables. Well, four, because of the vowels oh-never-mind.

Also Japanese likes to swallow its u sounds so to my ear it's Hak'ryuu more than Ha-ku-ryu-u. Every syllable is supposed to be held the same length of time but tests show that the Japanese actually give u syllables- ku mu su etc- half a beat instead. This is why I can't spell the name Goku. That says Gok' to my ear.

Re: 'This comment tells me more about Japanese than I wanted to know...'

[tj-dragonblade.livejournal.com]

*eating this up*

The study of language, any language, and its complexities and quirks and inner workings never fails to fascinate me. Truly.

I do curse my prolonged dub-exposure, though, for leaving me to fight the urge to pronounce things as if they were spelled Hockeroo and H'Kai. And I can't forget the way that most actors in the dub pronounced it Tenpoo, either. My husband prefers dubs, you see; I sat there through the Gaiden episodes repeatedly going 'Ten-po. It's Ten-po.' *shakes head* There's a lyrical sort of beauty to the native pronunciations that dub errors or anglicized simplifications just mangle.

I'm also reminded, off-handedly, of a couple other questions I'd wondered about that you might perhaps be able to answer.

I see Jiipu and Jippu both used quite often; which is the 'correct' or perhaps more accurate way to romanize the name?

If a person were to choke on the first half of Hakkai's name, would it be better to break it off after the first 'a', or between the 'k's? Or, perhaps, would it be a matter of wherever the speaker's breath happened to cut them off more than any question of grammatical specifics?

'I always wanted to be a pedant but I didn't have the Latin'

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Hockeroo. Yes. Brings back painful memories of the Rurou dub. English vowels are the curse of English. Every other language I've been exposed to has a delicate touch with its vowels, but English gives them the flat full-mouthed treatment, and pronounces them four different ways to boot. Keep your y's light, tripping on the tongue, and you can in time learn to say ryu and kyo as one sound.

Tenpoo almost makes me rethink my system of anglicization. I think it's in the same league as this (http://flemmings.livejournal.com/37044.html#cutid1). English phonics rule OK.

The name is Jiipu; Jippu is simply, well, wrong. It's written in katakana, being a foreign word to start with, since foreign words are always written in katakana. In katakana a long (ie sustained) vowel is indicated by a dash, and wouldn't it be nice if hiragana did the same because then the guy's name would be written Tenpo- with no pesky u's to confuse foreigners. The name's written ji-pu which turns into jiipu in our alphabet.

Re Hakkai: double consonants are held for two beats, and foreigners never ever ever hold their double consonants long enough. So you break the name after the first k, because otherwise you'll say those k's too fast. Hak-- count three, clean nails, check email-- kai. Do that and you'll have held the double consonant long enough. Seriously- you have to hold double consonants for what feels impossibly long before it sounds right to a Japanese and doesn't confuse them. Otherwise they hear 'Hakai' and wonder who you're talking about.

HTH.

Re: 'I always wanted to be a pedant but I didn't have the Latin'

[tj-dragonblade.livejournal.com]

I think it's in the same league as this.

*wipes away tears of mirth*

And that reminds me, in turn, of the many many discussions I've had with my four-year-old son over a character named Kaori on this snowboarding game he likes to play. The announcer presents her as 'Kay-or-ee'. Which makes me twitch. But when I say the name (and I'm sure I still sound far too close to 'cow-ree'), he'll tell me 'No, mom, it's Kay-or-ee'. And I have to explain, time and again, that yes I understand that's what the game said but honey, the game is wrong.

Anyway. Thank you, again, for the tips and insights. ^_^