The transliteration thread (Página 1 de 2)

Pretty much, I'd say. Being really picky: "Do Donpachi: Dai-Ou-Jou" is better.

Why in the world should you? (And no, finding it in Wikipedia is not a valid reason, much less on Shmups Dot Com's forum or MAME).

Hum. Not only that's not the original name for the game, it's not the Japanese form either, so maybe I'm not the best to answer but I'd definitely say the latter. Seems that the only reason one may supposedly have to write "Bee Storm: Do Donpachi II" is that "Bee Storm" has more "relevance" in the game logo, which is never an actual reason for anyone really used to this stuff.

Do never trust the interweb [for Japanese naming], seriously, especially the Western side of it.

Oh, I see, sorry... That's indeed the way it is "spelled" in the original logo, as I'm learning. But means nothing, if you ask me. Much like with "Bee Storm" and despite how odd may it sound, logos are never a good source for transliteration stuff. They take any kind of writing licence for artistic purposes, even if it opposes orthodox writing methods and common sense. We have a pretty close and edgy example I love with Esprade. I love it 'cause the interweb, you know, especially that formed up from the usual holier-than-you fanboys, persists on using something like "ESP Ra. De." since you can find that in the logo. The pile of shit that that implies from a linguistics point of view is so large I'd need a brand-new thread to explain it all, so I'll skip it and just say that something which (officially) is pronounced "esp-rade" can never be spelled "Esp Ra De", as anybody who just learned what a "word" is at school will know. It's that easy. Logos are, in many cases, made from writing licences which, for obvious reasons, aren't applicable out of them. At all.

"Camelcase" ("usage of capital letters in the middle of an [apparent] word") is, saving some very particular cases, just one more of those "writing licences for artistic/marketing purposes" which you need to construe, if you ask me. Usually, camelcase is just used to separate two different words, instead of the space (or the hyphen) between them. Could that be the case of "DonPachi"? It's possible, but one must be extremely careful with Japanese-to-romaji transliterations made by the Japanese authors themselves, you know. They just don't give a shit about correct romaji. Separating "donpachi" into "Don-Pachi" (once we agree we need to "construe" the logo spelling) is not incorrect at all (actually, is more "accurate" if we attend meaning), but is, say, less "orthodox", given the nature of the Japanese and its conception of words. Basically, the (constant) usage of kanji as "semantic groups" forms up "romaji" words. "Donpachi" has enough "entity" to be considered a single word, especially (and this is important) since "Do Donpachi" (etc.) does exist.

To sum it up, I'd use either "Donpachi", or "Don-Pachi", but _never_ "DonPachi".

Checking the title screen ( http://www.mameworld.net/maws/romset/ddp2 ) I'd say that that's not really the name for the Jap version.

There are: Snapshots -> Title (1), (2), etc. Anyway, yours is better.

I don't believe "anybody" does to this date. But we can try:

By checking the copyright lines on those, there's only one which mentions Cave. If there's a Japanese version it has to be that. So we have that the Japanese version, in case of existing (which seems so), was simply titled "Do Donpachi II" (yeah, the kanji in the first title snapshot is read "Do Donpachi", though not an easy one).

As for the rest, seems quite obvious that the Western/US (whichever) title screen is the second one, while the third one is most likely the original Taiwanese version and the fourth one seems like a "rest-of-China" alternative version. It wouldn't surprise me if those gold-colored kanji forms in the latter screenshots are read "Bee Storm". Chinese don't have kana, you know, so they use kanji to transliterate foreign words. Then again, I'm clueless about Chinese, so. 

Can't help you there, I'm afraid. Some I've compiled in release date order (not too reliable, though):

LONG HU BANG (?)   
CHUUGOKU RYUU II (?) / DRAGON WORLD II (?)
XI YO GI SHI RE ZUANG (?) / ORIENTAL LEGEND
GOUKEN KYOUTOU (?) / KILLING BLADE
XI YO GI SHI RE ZUANG SUPER (?) / ORIENTAL LEGEND SPECIAL (?)
XI YO GI SHI RE ZUANG QUN MO LUAN WU (?)   
CHUUGOKU RYUU III (?) / DRAGON WORLD III (?)
SANGOKU SENKI / KNIGHTS OF VALOUR
CHUUGOKU RYUU III SPECIAL (?) / DRAGON WORLD III SPECIAL (?)   
XING-YI QUEEN (?) / MARTIAL MASTERS   
CHUUGOKU RYUU IV (?) / DRAGON WORLD IV (?)

So hey, my turn now. This is from Greek to Roman alphabet, actually:

I transliterated that as "Kouklo Theatro", but want to make sure now I'm finishing the PS soft list for Postback's DB. Your opinion?

So not "perfect" enough... Thanks. Meaning?

.

I guess. But regarding the Greek term, do you use it as one single word instead of two?

.

Couple of questions for you Recap, when you have some time...

There's this MD game called Crying whose subtitle is giving me trouble. Full title: クライング 亜生命戦争. I know the last two kanji are "Sensou", but I am not sure about the first three. Emuasylum has it down as Crying: Asia Seimei Sensou.

Another thing I want to ask about is what to make of the URLs of official sites that are simply wrong. One recent example:

http://kyoryu-king.com/

The game's title would normally be rendered in English as Kodai Ouja Kyouryuu King, but clearly the developer's web designer thinks differently. What should I do in such cases? It seems to me that I should go with their version, much in the same way as we choose to write Radirgy and Karous instead of Rajirugi and Karasu...

Yeah, your thinking makes sense. The above reason is what convinces me to ignore URLs from now on. Thanks.

Absolutely. My mistake. It's a short "-u".

降 can be read as either, "kou" or "go", so we'd have either, "Kouma" or "Goma" (as far as I could reach). 霊 can be read as "rei", "ryo" or "tama". I took "ryo" 'cause "ryofu" is more usual than "reifu"... This is one of those game titles which you can't be sure about its pronounciation unless you find the official furigana somewhere, so then again, seems I was wrong. Thanks!

Seems this game modified its name a little bit at some point. Check this:

http://www.am-j.co.jp/newmachine/200609/002.html

"Noomiso Kone-Kone Puzzle Takoron".

The official site uses "Noo-Kone Puzzle Takoron" currently, which looks like an abbreviation of the former name (that's why I'm using the hyphen here; "Noo-Kone" is a compound word).

Hard question, I'm afraid. If you're asking if you should keep the star as it is (that is, as a sign), then, quick answer -- never ever. That's not orthodox writing, after all, whichever the language we're talking about.

But if you're asking if you should transliterate it too (that is, "Sharuuii Star Takoron"), well, then, I don't know. Normally you should (Guilty Gear # Reload /   ->   Guilty Gear Sharp Reload Slash, Street Fighter II'   ->   Street Fighter II Dash...). The ☆ is much the same, but _sometimes_ it's not intended to be part of the actual name, so you must be careful.

Notice I wrote "Sharuuii". That ~ you have there is a "chouonfu", a "long-vowel mark", much like ー.

There, quick answer too -- don't. I think I've let you know my opinion on this. Capitalizing a letter in the middle of a word is not orthodox writing. It's nice and fun as logo stuff, but nothing else. Try to answer yourself why you're wondering about "capitalizing the W"...

Thanks. So your suggestion is...?

I think I'm missing something! Your point?

Pretty much, it's the same reason behind indeed. Forget Japanese, this is Roman-based writing. Let's take English, for instance. Think of terms like "self-publishing", "twenty-five" or "hyphen-minus" -- compound words use a hyphen to mark its origin.

When you're transliterating into a Roman-based alphabet, you must follow its own rules, no matter what the original language does (especially when the writing codes have nothing to do each other). There are hundreds of examples of this very trend from Japanese authors of our days: Mamoru-kun ha Norowarete Shimatta! -> Mamo-Noro, Saturn Collection -> Sata-Kore, Winning Eleven -> Ui-Ire... "Noomiso Kone-Kone Puzzle" into "Noo-Kone Puzzle" is exactly the same. I don't know how the Japanese authors would like the romaji forms for those examples. Not that I care if I want to set a general rule, either. Compound words (especially if they're as arbitrary as this brand-new naming thingies) go with an in-between hyphen in my Roman-based language, much like a ☆ is never a conventional sign in my Roman-based language.

But don't forget to transliterate it for now, though. As I told you, the cases when it's not actual part of the name are the minority.

A "chouonfu" is hiragana too. It's up to the user whether if using it or writing an "extra vowel".

Indeed!

Certainly!

I agree to disagree there. For someone who does know the game name and just want to verify transliteration, or knowing release date, whatever, you're right. But what about those who indeed want the name of the games released in 1997, for instance? Release-date order can be very useful, I believe, but also entertaining. Try it out!

Keep in mind it's a full, single-paged list, anyway. You can always use the search tool of your browser ("street fighter", "nippon ichi", "neg-con"...). Not everybody can say that about their soft lists!

"Any Japanese sites"? I know you know at this point that Japanese are totally careless and useless for romanization stuff, so what's the point? Anyhow, yeah. Not sure about which examples exactly, but Japanese do "transliterate" so sometimes. They even separate them into two different words -- "Sata Kore", etc. But as I was saying, do never trust Japanese for transliteration rules, especially in regard to morphology stuff. It's a good advice, believe me.

Believe it or not, it's exactly the same thing. The only reason to write "Mushihime-sama" with a hyphen is because it's a compound word. And the truth is, despite recent usages and whatnot, that putting a hyphen is the most "natural" way to write compound words. Do whatever you want but, for you own good, consolidate. Write "Mushihimesama" if you are going to write "Mamonoro". Not that any of them are "incorrect", anyways...

Man, if we'd stick to that which seems more "natural" to us, we'd still be saying "PC Kid" instead of "PC Genjin" or "Super CD-ROM" instead of "Super CD-ROM-ROM", which are only two lovely examples of this analphabetism trend the Western media have been building up all these years.

Whatever. Nor English nor Japanese have "the # and x characters" actually. Indeed, when you're writing a # when you mean "sharp" or an x when you mean "cross", you're not using either, Japanese nor English. It's hard to me to explain this in English, you know... They are "language licenses", "borrowed forms" and, indeed, "writing jokes". Much like camelcase, or the lack of capital letters heading proper names, etc, etc, it's not acceptable for a proper, correct writing. That's why you'll find  シャープ instead of # and クロス instead of x when you get to the game names written in Japanese, if you want a tangible argument.

Not to mention スター in the case of ☆, of course.

Obviously. Even the official Western name is "Pochi and (= to) Nyaa". I'm going to destroy another of those transliteration myths for you, by the way. Correct transliteration for ...ッチ... is not "cch", but "tch". Think about it -- ッ is actually about "reinforcing the following sound", not about a mere "consonant duplicity". "Pocchi" is read "pok-chi", which is nothing like the original word's pronounciation. "Potchi", on the other hand...

Is it that you have seen "Mamonoro" anywhere? 'Cause I really can't understand where's the problem with "Mamo-Noro" besides the people's laziness to write hyphens these days...!

Of course. But you know, exceptions to a rule must be supported by some reason. And again, I fail to see the issue with hyphens for compound words.

Looks alright to me (though the full name seems to be "Rekishi Gunzou Presents Monoshiri Sengoku-Ou"). It's a different case, anyhow. You can consider "Sengoku Ou" as two separated words and write it so.