Inverted Japanese?

pookish · Post by **pookish** » Thu, 15. Dec 05, 07:01

DATTEBAYO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DanishEagle · Post by **DanishEagle** » Thu, 15. Dec 05, 07:27

Shokai wrote:Well....Fune means ship, vessel boat etc. I cant find anything regarding nikkono Maybe a proper name? Nikkono's ship. Getsu on the hand should be moon. Moonship? Would be funny if it means spaceship. Like naming your dog, Dog.

According to the book Farnham's Legend, Getsu Fune translates into "moon ship" so you were right on

silent1 · Post by **silent1** » Thu, 15. Dec 05, 07:34

Nikkonofune also might be nikko(u)-no-fune - 'ship of sunlight'. It's a simple guess as i am also a mere gaijin, who learned something about japanese, being subbed anime watcher.

Shokai · Post by **Shokai** » Thu, 15. Dec 05, 08:21

Danish Eagle: Thanks! Yatta!!!

Silent1: You might be onto something there....considering GetsuFune seems to be MoonShip, seems to match Ship of sunlight kinda well there.

Pookish: Wakarimasen!

Post by **HelgeK** » Mon, 26. Dec 05, 14:52

Schizosimian wrote: As for the japenese, why anyone thought this would eventually become the earths dominant language I can only guess. Prob an early childhood fixation with Akeira by one of the storywriters!

I was considering making it Kiswahili at the time, but then I had second thoughts

Seriously, the original X-btf backstory from 1998/1999 suggested that Earth was confined to the Sol system for several hundreds of years. Yet, in the first prototype testing the jump-drive (!), there was a universal translator aboard the X-shuttle that could adapt almost instantly to alien talk.

I felt the idea was illogical as hell. Plus, I hate universal translators. They create plot holes wherever they stand and go. Watch any episode of any Star Trek series, and you know what I mean.

So, for Farnham's Legend, I had to think of something else. Having an Earth language become the lingua franca of the X-Universe independently of Earth itself fitted nicely into the plot of the novel.

I could have chosen English, but at the time I thought, everyone thinks English will be the language of the whole damn galaxy. An idea I don't like much, either (not because I dislike the language - in fact, I like English very much -, but because it's such a common and standard way to go).

So I chose Japanese.

And since beginning from X-Tension, many details were taken from Farnham's Legend and put right into the game, Japanese was adopted as the language of choice in later games.

If I had to chose a language again, today I would select French. Or Kiswahili after all

Helge

Post by **HelgeK** » Mon, 26. Dec 05, 15:00

silent1 wrote:Nikkonofune also might be nikko(u)-no-fune - 'ship of sunlight'. It's a simple guess as i am also a mere gaijin, who learned something about japanese, being subbed anime watcher.

That's exactly what it means. I asked my former gf, who speaks Japanese fluently and also lived in Japan for a while, what name would be appropriate for Elena's ship in Nopileos. And she suggested Nikkonofune, ship of sunshine/sunlight.

Helge

szuur · Post by **szuur** » Mon, 26. Dec 05, 18:13

Gezundheit

Shannon Maricle · Post by **Shannon Maricle** » Tue, 27. Dec 05, 23:05

Damn that was a good read. Everything. X3 being my first X game and all, this makes great sense, and actually gets me into the game even more.

shasla5 · Post by **shasla5** » Tue, 27. Dec 05, 23:10

The question is, why would the entire human race convert to Japanese? As things are, most people know English (including the Japanese), and Japanese is very different from the dominant romance languages of Europe.

Sarcana · Post by **Sarcana** » Tue, 27. Dec 05, 23:16

So hilarious, but cute! Keep up with your studies!
In am both happy and amazed that so many people are studying Japanese!

頑張ってね！

Rapier · Post by **Rapier** » Tue, 27. Dec 05, 23:21

shasla5 wrote:The question is, why would the entire human race convert to Japanese? As things are, most people know English (including the Japanese), and Japanese is very different from the dominant romance languages of Europe.

Because Helge wanted to be non-conformist, basically.

shasla5 · Post by **shasla5** » Tue, 27. Dec 05, 23:22

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Arbalest · Post by **Arbalest** » Wed, 28. Dec 05, 00:06

shasla5 wrote:The question is, why would the entire human race convert to Japanese? As things are, most people know English (including the Japanese), and Japanese is very different from the dominant romance languages of Europe.

Sci-fi scenarios aren't always logical, linear projections from current events. It's the definition of the genre that you can imagine anything. So let's imagine a massive plague, or a nanotechnology-run-amok disaster that wipes out the Western countries (and Russia, while we're at it). Then there is a massive war between China, India and Pakistan where they nuke each other to oblivion, leaving Japan as the only surviving highly technical civilization, and therefore the dominant cultural influence.

Well, that's a stretch, but at least I can imagine it.

Post by **HelgeK** » Wed, 28. Dec 05, 10:22

Arbalest wrote: Well, that's a stretch, but at least I can imagine it.

Well, my train of thoughts (besides being non-conformist) was along the lines of this: the Earth jumpgate technology was invented by a japanese student (who found the physics behind it more or less by accident, while researching into something entirely different). To cut a long story short, after that, Japan became the most important hi-tech and space nation on Earth. Even though in the end there were more Europeans in space than Asians, Japanese prevailed as the language of the space farers.

Realistic or not, I like positive thinking, and for me at the time, this was a pretty positive idea.

By the way, this is all in the Timeline V3 document that should be floating around the 'net for serveral years now...

Cheers
Helge

PS: I am planning on creating an X-Universe encyclopedia that explains all these things in detail (complete with illustrations and paintings (an graphics artist has yet to be found)) sometime next year. I am planning on a print version in English and German (unfortunately, not in Japanese, though :-/)

Sarcana · Post by **Sarcana** » Thu, 29. Dec 05, 07:40

Nicholas Kabourakis · Post by **Nicholas Kabourakis** » Thu, 29. Dec 05, 10:37

HelgeK wrote:PS: I am planning on creating an X-Universe encyclopedia that explains all these things in detail (complete with illustrations and paintings (an graphics artist has yet to be found)) sometime next year. I am planning on a print version in English and German (unfortunately, not in Japanese, though :-/)

Wow! Can't wait!

I guess that you can find a graphics artist lurking in these forums if you turn your idea into a request and post it in a sticky thread.

Cheers

Ebany · Post by **Ebany** » Thu, 29. Dec 05, 10:58

I say go for it. I think many people would like to read it, gives the game more depth ...... good luck with that artist though.

Quaxiwuti · Post by **Quaxiwuti** » Tue, 15. Aug 06, 07:32

It is nice to see so many people study Japanese. I am also on it. I'm doing my civil service in Japan right now.
I'm not very good in Japanese yet, but I think that there is a language mistake with Getsu no fune.
The character 月 (for moon) has more than one reading and in the reading "getsu" or "gatsu" it means "month" in the reading "tsuki" it means moon. So I think moonship should be translated to "Tsuki no fune".
But Tsukinofune does not sound very good...
Well, correct me if I'm wrong but that's what I consider as a translation mistake.
Quaxiwuti

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Tue, 15. Aug 06, 08:10

Please don't resurrect ancient threads.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Inverted Japanese?

heh ...

dagnabbit