Thread: A couple of English details

I'll stick with Masukippa XD

I would pronounce the s as an sh...

The problem lies in the fact that most English-speaking people do not know the rules of romanizing Japanese, and it would never occur to them to pronounc "si" as "shi" because there isn't any precedent (at least no immediately obvious one) in the English language for such a pronunciation. In fact, I wasn't really thinking that "si" is how "shi" was romanized until I remembered seeing it a few times in romanized names of Japanese websites (like "tenshinranran" in kana written as "Tensinranran").

Besides...isn't that just one system of romanization, and a rather outdated one at that? The systems that my Japanese textbook, Japanese dictionaries, and Japanese grammar dictionaries (all written by different people and published by different companies) use are all ones in which the kana for "shi" is romanized as "shi", not "si". And that's how I've seen it all over the place except on some self-romanized Japanese sites like the example I cited above.

So "Sinnoh"...I hope NoA doesn't actually expect everyone to pronounce it as "shin-oh". I'd be surprised if the official anime dub even does (then again, there have been discrepancies aplenty between the anime and NoA translations). In my head every time I see "Sinnoh" I don't read it with the "sh" sound, for sure. And then it just sounds terribly awkward.

This is what is wrong with the phrase: "practice makes perfect." what if you practice the wrong thing? For a lot of us, sinnoh is going to take ridiculously long to get used to after being exposed to the shinou pronounciation. like me, for instance. i know i'll sound like i'm clinging to the past, but i'll probably end up saying shinou anyway...

Originally Posted by The Incarnation Pokémon

Besides...isn't that just one system of romanization, and a rather outdated one at that?

Not outdated, but simply rare. In linguistic circles you are likely to see such spellings as tookyoo zya naku hirosima desu instead of Tōkyō ja naku Hiroshima desu.

Sinnoh? What the :scratch: kinda name is that?

Originally Posted by Zhen Lin

Not outdated, but simply rare. In linguistic circles you are likely to see such spellings as tookyoo zya naku hirosima desu instead of Tōkyō ja naku Hiroshima desu.

Ah, okay, thanks for the clarification.

But that still means that most people don't know about such pronunciations, not even if they've studied some Japanese. I think it's fair to assert that any native English speaker without that special knowledge would not have "shi" as their first thought if they saw "si". So even if "Sinnoh" technically should be pronounced as "shinoh", for all practical purposes it won't be. And after hearing "shinoh" (am I just hearing things, or is the Japanese pronunciation somewhat more like "shinyoh" rather than "shinoh"?) for so long I'm going to wince for sure when all this "sin-oh" comes along.

It's pronounced [ɕiˑ̃oː], which is to say, something like shiĩ-o, with nasalisation on the second i.

Originally Posted by The Incarnation Pokémon

The problem lies in the fact that most English-speaking people do not know the rules of romanizing Japanese, and it would never occur to them to pronounc "si" as "shi" because there isn't any precedent (at least no immediately obvious one) in the English language for such a pronunciation. In fact, I wasn't really thinking that "si" is how "shi" was romanized until I remembered seeing it a few times in romanized names of Japanese websites (like "tenshinranran" in kana written as "Tensinranran").

But this isn't a romanisation, this is the official English name. In English Si = Si. Simple as that. If they wanted it to be Shi - why not just have it as Shinoh?

I have no idea where we're meant to get Shin-oh from Sinnoh. So, really, it's just stupid that they went that path. :/

It probably has to do with length. Shinnoh is seven letters, in contrast to the five-letter Kanto, Johto and Hoenn.

There is a certain consistency in the scheme, if you ignore Kanto. オウ gets turned into < oh > except before vowels. ン gets turned into < nn > except before consonants.

Originally Posted by Doctor Oak

But this isn't a romanisation, this is the official English name. In English Si = Si. Simple as that. If they wanted it to be Shi - why not just have it as Shinoh?

I have no idea where we're meant to get Shin-oh from Sinnoh. So, really, it's just stupid that they went that path. :/

I know it's the official English name; my whole bit about the romanization was in response to this

Originally Posted by Argy

"Sinnoh" IS the Japanese name, it's just that we've never seen it officially romanized before. "Shin'ou" is how "Sinnoh" is spelled in kana. It hasn't been changed- it's just that our translation was off this whole time.

and all the other mentions of how "si" is an appropriate romanization of "shi".

And my entire point was that it's going to end up being pronounced "si" in English given the name "Sinnoh".

I'm afraid that I'll have to agree with Doctor Oak. The English name doesn't coincide with Japanese grammar rules. Most American fans have no idea how to even pronounce romanized words, so what would be the point in doing all of that?

It just seems to me that they put up a stupid name. -_- It saddens me.

I'm sorry, I'm unfamiliar with that particular use of the word 'grammar'.

This is in fact very similar to something called passport romanisation - the spellings of Japanese names in passports are wide and varied and inconsistent, but one particular scheme seems unique to passports. The defining characteristic is the < oh > spelling for オウ.

Originally Posted by Silverishness

I'm afraid that I'll have to agree with Doctor Oak. The English name doesn't coincide with Japanese grammar rules. Most American fans have no idea how to even pronounce romanized words, so what would be the point in doing all of that?

It just seems to me that they put up a stupid name. -_- It saddens me.

First of all, grammar of one language =/= system of indicating pronunciation in another language.

Meaning that it's likely NoA got something of the name from romanizing the original Japanese but then took their own liberties with it, which is exactly what they did with the English name for the last region (Hoenn versus Houen).

Obviously the English name of Sinnoh is not intended to be a direct romanization--otherwise what would explain the extra "n"?

As far as getting an accurate pronunciation, the anime will probably help in that regard - I pronounced Rayquaza wrong for years until I saw the Deoxys movie...