Immortals Handbook - ASCENSION

[Alzrius]

Although when you say supposed to be, its named that in a few places.

Where? Nowhere in the original DBGT, certainly, since I've watched all of that and he's only ever called Ishenron there. I haven't watched the dubs of GT, but I was under the impression that he was called Omega Shenron there - not that I place too much faith in dubbed names.

 

[Kavon]

Where? Nowhere in the original DBGT, certainly, since I've watched all of that and he's only ever called Ishenron there. I haven't watched the dubs of GT, but I was under the impression that he was called Omega Shenron there - not that I place too much faith in dubbed names.

If you want to put it absolutely correctly, you'd have to call him "Yi Xing Long" (which is Chinese). Hence "Ishinron", which is how it would be written down in Japanese transliteration.
Syn Shenron only becomes Omega Shenron after gobbling up the dragon balls in the dub.
Also, it simply means "One Star Dragon" (which would be something different than Ishinron in Japanese, more something like "Ichihoshiryuu" or whatnot)

Hmm.. Google is handy, lol.

 

[Alzrius]

If you want to put it absolutely correctly, you'd have to call him "Yi Xing Long" (which is Chinese). Hence "Ishinron", which is how it would be written down in Japanese transliteration.

Well, that's in the historical etymology of the word. I was referring to what's "absolutely correct" in the context of the show, since I don't believe in altering someone else's artwork for a foreign audience (hence why I don't like dubs. Subtitles are, in that case, the lesser of two evils).

Syn Shenron only becomes Omega Shenron after gobbling up the dragon balls in the dub.
Also, it simply means "One Star Dragon" (which would be something different than Ishinron in Japanese, more something like "Ichihoshiryuu" or whatnot)

Hmm.. Google is handy, lol.

Actually, the Japanese "Ishenron" literally translates to "One God Dragon." The "i" is the prefix form of "ichi," and is used as the base form when applied to things being counted. "Shen" is a slightly stylized reading of "shin," which is itself the ON (as opposed to kun) reading for the kanji for "kami," which means "god" or "spirit." Likewise, "ron" is another reading (presumably an esoteric ON reading, as it's meant to more closely match the Chinese pronounciation) of the same kanji for "dragon."

Google is handy, but six years of studying Japanese in school is more handy.

EDIT: I checked Wikipedia's entry on the evil dragons from DBGT. While Ishenron doesn't have his kanji listed, Ryanshenron does, and the "shenron" part can be easily read for all of them, since it's the same for every dragon. The kanji Wikipedia uses there is the kanji for "star," and not the kanji for "god." I have the Dragonball manga in the original Japanese, and that kanji isn't the one used in Shenron's normal name. This makes the Wikipedia entry's kanji something of an oddity, as my kanji dictionary doesn't list "shin" as a pronunciation for that kanji. However, it seems to be one, as Goku's four-star ball is literally called the "sushinchu," which is a literal translation.

That said, since there is no DBGT manga, there's no way to be certain that the Wikipedia entry has it right. I'd say it seems likely though, which'd mean that his name means "One Star Dragon" after all.

 

[Kavon]

Google is handy, but six years of studying Japanese in school is more handy.

If you have that much experience, you should know that "Shenron" isn't a Japanese name as such.. Dragonball uses quite some Chinese naming for its characters (since it was originally ripping off a Chinese story, that's not hard to imagine).
Your reading of One God Dragon is interesting, but that the names for Ishenron and all the other shenron are transliterations from Chinese is (to me) obviously more accurate (and thus the Chinese original pronunciation is most accurate).
If there's only the anime to go by, the pronunciation of the name has no merrit, since Japanese people aren't that well known for pronouncing foreign words very well (since they transliterate pretty much everything first)...

...Ah whatever, it doesn't matter - I don't even really like dragonball that much anyway, and this is derailing the topic.
Just let U_K use Sin Shenron if he wants, or Omega Shenron, or whatever name he likes - people will actually know what he's talking about more likely than not that way

 

[Alzrius]

If you have that much experience, you should know that "Shenron" isn't a Japanese name as such.. Dragonball uses quite some Chinese naming for its characters (since it was originally ripping off a Chinese story, that's not hard to imagine).]

First of all, it's not ripping anything off - using a historical myth as a basis for a story is perfectly legitimate, especially considering all the new elements that Toriyama introduced.

Secondly, I did already know that it's a Chinese name, but that's not what was being discussed. We weren't talking about the etymology of the mythical character that inspired the show; we were talking about a character in the show itself. Given that we're talking about the Japanese meaning of the Japanese transliteration of the name of a character in a show made for Japanese viewers, it's not out of line to stick to translating the Japanese kanji to see what meaning they assigned it, instead of just jumping back to the Chinese etymology.

Your reading of One God Dragon is interesting, but that the names for Ishenron and all the other shenron are transliterations from Chinese is (to me) obviously more accurate (and thus the Chinese original pronunciation is most accurate).

So the fact that another culture has a different interpretation of something, to say nothing of the fictional interpretation used by the anime, isn't worth considering?

If there's only the anime to go by, the pronunciation of the name has no merrit, since Japanese people aren't that well known for pronouncing foreign words very well (since they transliterate pretty much everything first)...

That bit about Japanese people not being able to pronounce foreign words well is not only untrue, but also prejudiced. You don't know all Japanese people, and you don't know how well they pronounce foreign words. It's just as easy to say that Americans butcher foreign words also - that particular stereotype can be applied anywhere without anything to back it up.

Likewise, the pronunciation of the Japanese version of the name has merit, in that it's the Japanese incarnation, which has a distinct cultural identity unto itself, and a specific reading of the kanji assigned to it.

 

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

You say to-mA-to, I say to-mah-to...
Does it really matter? We all know who we are refering to. (Unless you are talking to someone who is Japanese/Chinese)
My aproximation for the DBZ dragons:
Earth's first dragon: Intermediate Deity
Namek's Dragon: Elder One
Earth's 2nd dragon: Greater Deity
GT Uber Dragon: Old one/First one. (Perhaps even a demiurge at full power)
... And ever notice how everything in DBZ after the Frieza saga was only terrifying because it could regenerate? (Well, Cell was powerful, but Buu could be distracted/slowed/disabled by secoundary characters)
Now if all the DBZ villians did the fusion dance and then were absorbed by buu who absorbs all the eternal dragons...
The resulting "thing" would probably be of Timelord power. But no matter how strong it gets, Goku will still find a way to win. (Probably by reaching yet another level of super saiyan... Or by getting Gohan to unlock his Hidden power for the bazillionth time... And THEN getting to another level of Super Saiyan when that doesn't work.)

 

[Nifelhein]

That bit about Japanese people not being able to pronounce foreign words well is not only untrue, but also prejudiced. You don't know all Japanese people, and you don't know how well they pronounce foreign words. It's just as easy to say that Americans butcher foreign words also - that particular stereotype can be applied anywhere without anything to back it up.

Well,it can be backed up, and I can say americans have ahard time pronouncing nearly everything in Portuguese, my mother tongue, while I would also have a damn hard tiem pronouncing anything in japanese.

This is not without back up, though, it is based on the phonetics of the language, english language has almost all of its phonetics inside portuguese, but protuguese has a mcuh wider amount of sounds that english speakers just don't hear or are used to.

In the case of japanese the sounds are very very different from most western languages, and that means we and them have difficulties pronouncing each other's tongues. It may have prejudice though, mainly because this can change with study and proficiency on the language and individual capability, but it is not out of the target, there are very few foreign authors who could write a good book in chinese, surely there are some, but they are not as common as people who write in english.

English is the least complex language I have had contact with until now.

 

[Alzrius]

Nifelhein, what you say, regarding various languages being very different from each other, is perfectly reasonable. But that's not what Kavon was saying. He was saying that all Japanese people are known for their lack of ability to pronounce foreign words, which is neither reasonable, nor factual.

It's also especially untrue in the context of the conversation that we were having; The Chinese name Sheng Long isn't called Shenron in Japanese because everyone in Japan is butchering the name, but because that's how they pronounce the characters that write the name. Attributing cultural transliteration to being poor speakers isn't saying that one language is hard to learn; it's a prejudiced statement against an entire group of people.

 

[Nifelhein]

Agreed.

Just wanted to say that we can talk about this kind of thing without prejudice.

 

[Kavon]

But that's not what Kavon was saying. He was saying that all Japanese people are known for their lack of ability to pronounce foreign words, which is neither reasonable, nor factual.

Actually, that's not what I said. I said that they are known to pronounce things wrong because they transliterate it first. Tien becomes Ten (sky/heaven/etc) - it sounds similar, but it's not quite it. I know full well that there are Japanese people who can speak other languages with great proficiency, but I also know how a majority doesn't bother and just reads the transliteration - nothing wrong with that, but if you want to go into semantics about which name is the correct one (like you did), it becomes a bit more important, don't you think?

It's also especially untrue in the context of the conversation that we were having; The Chinese name Sheng Long isn't called Shenron in Japanese because everyone in Japan is butchering the name, but because that's how they pronounce the characters that write the name.

Not Shen Long, Xing Long (probably doesn't matter much, but that's what it is).
The way they pronounce the characters has little to do with it.. because that's not how they pronounce those kanji (like I showed in my first post on this derailment).

Attributing cultural transliteration to being poor speakers isn't saying that one language is hard to learn; it's a prejudiced statement against an entire group of people.

Like I said earlier, I wasn't calling the entire Japanese people poor foreign language speakers, I was just saying that when they transliterate words from foreign languages, certain details will be lost, making for the pronunciation of that word to faulty compared to the original - similar, but not quite it. If they studied the original language and all that, I'm sure they'd have little problem (if it was similar enough - I can't pronounce Chinese Mandarin right at all, though if I'd practice it'd get better - a Japanese person would probably be able to do it right if not transliterated).
For what it's worth, I think we Westerners also suck in our pronunciation - in general - when it comes to Chinese and such, not because we can't, but because of the transliteration.
Hm.. As such, I was criticizing transliterations as a whole, not Japanese people and their usage of it in specific. I was just trying to explain (a little awkwardly) that if U_K should use a correct term, he'd have to use the Chinese one instead of the Japanese transliteration (IMnotalwayssohumbleitseemssorrysorryO).

I can see that I might've chosen some words wrong, and picked at things that didn't need picking, but that's something I can't change now, only clarify. Sorry if I seem like a jerk or anything, Alzrius. :3