Weirdness: Discussing Japanese in Nohr!?

[nocturnal YL]

All those story stuff doesn't bother me at all, but this does:

In certain support conversations, it's made quite clear that the language they're using is just Japanese. They didn't even make it look like it's translated or something.

Look at Marx and Pieri, discussing about the use of keigo. Or female Kamui and Anna, talking about the intonation used for Anna's name -- this discussion wasn't weird in itself, except that they noted that "Anna" contains 3 characters. Given that they touched the subject of language before in Tellius, I find this very strange. Why would they speak in a language that uses Japanese grammar?

Sure, they did use Japanese language cues in the past games too - random katakana mixed in to show foreign accents, or subtle use of various honourifics to show the relations between the characters, but Marx and Pieri showed that they're actually speaking that way, and not just something presented to the player.

This isn't the first time something like this happened. In the overseas versions of FE8, Colm would tell Marisa to "speak English", or whatever European language it's localised to. Or that secret serum / truth serum in the Harvest Bond DLC in Japanese FE13.

Edit for more elaboration:

There are other places where honourifics are discussed. Neimi introducing herself to Amelia and Mariabelle trying to teach Brady to speak, for example. Now that I think of it, this isn't a new phenomenon at all. But the FE14 ones are more specific about this -- that they are just speaking plain Japanese or some kind of 1-to-1 equivalent, and not merely a different, unnamed language with similar rules in places.

Edited November 30, 2015 by nocturnal YL

[Minischew]

Oh, that's pretty jarring. Nohrians shouldn't be speaking Japanese...

This isn't the first time something like this happened. In the overseas versions of FE8, Colm would tell Marisa to "speak English", or whatever European language it's localised to. Or that secret serum / truth serum in the Harvest Bond DLC in FE13.

Then maybe they'll change it so that they're speaking English instead?

[nocturnal YL]

I think in terms of localisation, this is easy. Nohrians can speak English, and from what we've seen thus far, Hoshidan people and items have Japanese-sounding names. That's one thing I can look forward to, even though I otherwise prefer the Japanese version.

The FE8 instance is weird because they're not actually in our world. There shouldn't be any "English" or "German" in Magvall.

[NekoKnight]

Uh...is it weird to you that a game made by the Japanese has everyone speak Japanese? Should they have referenced grammatical structures that don't exist in Japanese?

Although the two nations (Hoshido and Nohr) are inspired by real world nations, they are just fantasy nations. Unless stated otherwise, they all speak the same language and naturally it's going to be the one used by the intended audience.

[bearaby]

Everyone has to speak one same language anyway, or IK would be a huge mess. That, or they'd have to pull out some "My Castle is magical enough that it translates what everyone's saying" thing.

[nocturnal YL]

Uh...is it weird to you that a game made by the Japanese has everyone speak Japanese? Should they have referenced grammatical structures that don't exist in Japanese?

Although the two nations (Hoshido and Nohr) are inspired by real world nations, they are just fantasy nations. Unless stated otherwise, they all speak the same language and naturally it's going to be the one used by the intended audience.

Showing Japanese (or European languages) to the audience is natural, of course. But I feel that they didn't fictionalise it enough. So for example, instead of discussing the use of keigo, they could have just talked about talking politely? But I would agree that this would in turn make it difficult for the audience to read.

And I guess one reason it's jarring is because they're otherwise giving Japanese-sounding and European-sounding names to both sides. It's like Nohr runs on European-inspired names and speaks in Japanese-inspired grammar. Not that this is an invalid setting, and I probably wound't feel weird if I haven't learned Japanese and European culture before, so yeah.

I think fantasy nations should speak fantasy languages, manifested as translationese to the audience. At minimum, they shouldn't talk about any actual language.

Everyone has to speak one same language anyway, or IK would be a huge mess. That, or they'd have to pull out some "My Castle is magical enough that it translates what everyone's saying" thing.

Nohrians speak in katakoto? That would feel racist in a real-life sense, though...

Or maybe they should have some translators ready. But I do see that this wouldn't work as well as Tellius did, since all three nations involved are quite large.

...But yeah, my problem isn't that they can talk to each other; it's that it feels weird for them to specifically point out Japanese grammar. They speak Japanese, rather than their speech manifest as Japanese (or a localised language) to the audience.

Edited November 30, 2015 by nocturnal YL

[VincentASM]

I always pretended most video games use a tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Translation_circuit'>Doctor Who TARDIS translation circuit that automatically translates the in-game language to our own.

Video games based on real-life are especially jarring when you have characters who are stated to be from America speaking Japanese, Italian, German, etc. depending on which version of the game you're playing.

So I don't really it's a big deal really. Unless you physically see Japanese in the background, like in the shop signs. Even then, it could be the TARDIS still : P

[NekoKnight]

Even if they were literally speaking Japanese, it's not out of place because it's a fantasy setting and Hoshido is not actually Japan, no matter how similar they may appear. So maybe everyone speaks Fatesion which has a lot of grammatical structures similar to Japanese but isn't. References to things like keigo or honorifics isn't really a discussion of linguistics in general. They are just concepts that Japanese gamers are familiar with because it's probably the ONLY language they are familiar with.

In Japanese, like the actual proper language, there are A LOT of words that are borrowed from other languages but have been made into Japanese. "Pasokon" (derived from personal computer, ie PC) is certainly an English loan word but it doesn't mean a thing to English speakers. It's only a word recognized by the Japanese. Likewise, while we as non-Japanese might recognize Nohrian things as being non-Japanese, to Japanese gamers, the words and names are just a form of Japanese. It's kind of a difficult subject to grasp if you only have a western perspective.

Very few Fire Emblem games make reference to alternative languages even though the stories span entire continents.

[Thane]

The strange part is that Gray explains that his name means...well, gray, in "Nohrian".

[Thor Odinson]

There are references to English being Nohrian, such the Leokumi conversation or Grey/Saizou.

But even then, it can be limited to vocab. It's a fictional universe, so something phonetically similar to English (in Katakana translation) but with Japanese grammar rules would still stand. Write what you know, etc, and English is not exactly a language known for its simple-to-pick up grammar. Nevermind that Japanese writers likely have very limited English knowledge as just a second language (English isn't an easy language for non-Europeans to pick up, especially. Similarly in Chinese we have a much harder time with English than Europeans because the language gap is so much bigger), I'm pretty multilingual at this point with a much higher advantage over foreign languages than most people, but if you asked me to write something in a language whose grammatical structures I'm not familiar with, I would not be able to pull it off even with a grammar guide.

Maybe since they're geographically close it could actually be some sort of Italian-Spanish deal where it's 2 languages but from the same root and mostly understandable by the other, or at least have a common language somehow, or it's kinda expected to just be bilingual.

Edited November 30, 2015 by Thor Odinson

[nocturnal YL]

There are references to English being Nohrian, such the Leokumi conversation or Grey/Saizou.

But even then, it can be limited to vocab. It's a fictional universe, so something phonetically similar to English (in Katakana translation) but with Japanese grammar rules would still stand. Write what you know, etc, and English is not exactly a language known for its simple-to-pick up grammar. Nevermind that Japanese writers likely have very limited English knowledge as just a second language (English isn't an easy language for non-Europeans to pick up, especially. Similarly in Chinese we have a much harder time with English than Europeans because the language gap is so much bigger), I'm pretty multilingual at this point with a much higher advantage over foreign languages than most people, but if you asked me to write something in a language whose grammatical structures I'm not familiar with, I would not be able to pull it off even with a grammar guide.

Maybe since they're geographically close it could actually be some sort of Italian-Spanish deal where it's 2 languages but from the same root and mostly understandable by the other, or at least have a common language somehow, or it's kinda expected to just be bilingual.

Now that you mention this, it has occurred to me that it's entirely possible that the writer either (1) knew this, but thought keigo and Japanese honourifics work in European-styled languages too (true to some extent, actually), or (2) just presented the issue this way because this is what they know.

...But really, as someone who can read English, some Japanese and a bunch of other languages, this still sticks out to me. Not that "it's just the vocabulary that's different" is an invalid explanation, yeah...