Random: On Translation

[nebroadwe]

Occasionally people ask me -- actually, they tend to pop up, red pen in hand, and point it out as an error -- why I write the name of Edward Elric's hometown as "Riesenbuhl" in my fanfiction. Well, it's not an error; it's a deliberate choice. Here's why I made it:

The katakana Arakawa uses to represent this name are リゼンブール (i.e. RI ZE N BUU RU, roughly pronounced [leezenbool]). Already the would-be translator is in trouble, because the Japanese liquid consonant isn't quite an "r" or an "l" as we Anglophones pronounce them, but sits somewhere between the two. As anyone who's read the manga Death Note knows, for instance, the English word "killer" and the Japanese onomatopoeic word キラ (i.e KIRA -- bright, shiny) are all but homophones to Japanese speakers. That said, final ル (RU) frequently transcribes a terminal "l" when moving from western languages like English to Japanese -- e.g. "Al" becomes アル, ARU. Arakawa tends not to invent names for her characters and settings, but to borrow them from Indo-European languages (e.g. Van Hohenheim, Amestris). And Riesenbuhl happens to be a German place name which is roughly pronounced [reezenbool] and would, therefore, logically be transcribed into Japanese as ... リゼンブール. As they say in my neck of the woods, "Bingo!"

I can't take credit for this idea; I remember seeing it in someone else's 'fic, probably on Scimitar Smile somewhere, back when I first began poking about in the Fullmetal Alchemist fandom. By then "Risembool" was established in Funimation's subtitles and in most print translations I ran across (fannish and official). But I stuck with "Riesenbuhl" because it's a) linguistically defensible; and b) aesthetically much more pleasing -- "Risembool/Resembool" just looks like a random collection of sounds to me, not a likely name in a milieu with places called "Rush Valley" and "Central" and "Briggs". But I am not a professional translator, so I don't insist on the correctness of my conclusion -- and would be happy to hear from anyone who has more expertise in this area than I. Always eager to learn, me.

ADDENDUM: I don't have a full etymology for Riesenbuhl -- the first element probably means "really big" (from Riese, giant), but the second element is trickier. I'm inclined to think it means "hill", but I'm not sure. Anyone who can help out with this one is also welcome to leave a comment.

Comments

[lyricnonsense.livejournal.com]

Ooo, that's pretty interesting. I remember when I first saw FMA and heard the name of the town, I though to myself "Wow, could they have picked a bigger headache for translators?"

I still haven't been able to bring myself to read your zombie fic. I know it'll be excellent, but I have this thing about zombies... Sorry :(

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Ooo, that's pretty interesting. I remember when I first saw FMA and heard the name of the town, I though to myself "Wow, could they have picked a bigger headache for translators?"

Well, "Xerxes" seems to have boggled the good folk at Viz. :-) I have a lot of respect for people who translate for a living, particularly the ones who work in literature, and wish more people reading manga and watching anime had more of an idea of what goes into making a good translation. Del Rey's footnotes and willingness to teach the conflict are very helpful in that respect (must remember to write them that love letter :-). Watching parts of the Princess Tutu fandom convulse over having the heroine's name, Ahiru, rendered as "Duck" in English, left me with a desire to knock heads together, since a great deal of the kerfuffle wasn't about making a good translation (there being no proper name "Ahiru" in Japanese, it's not like translating "Sakura" as "Cherry" or "Usagi" as "Bunny") but about the fact that "Ahiru" in English is a pretty-sounding collection of syllables, suitable for a romantic heroine, while "Duck" ... is not. (And the familiarity factor, of course -- if you're used to a name, it can be hard to shift gears.) Having cut my fantasy-linguistic teeth on Tolkien (as well as dealing in foreign tongues for most of my brief scholarly career), I find myself as dissatisfied by invented names that are merely phonetically pretty (see The Game of the Gods (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1518794/1/The_Game_of_the_Gods) for examples that skewer this conceit as it deserves) as I am by original characters who have coppery red hair, luminous green eyes and freckles -- unless it's justified by other factors. [wanders off, ranting under her breath]

I still haven't been able to bring myself to read your zombie fic. I know it'll be excellent, but I have this thing about zombies... Sorry :(

No problem. I can't bring myself to read your Maes/Roy, either, and am equally sorry. I have a thing about non-canonical slash pairings. :-) Also erotica -- despite being a medievalist, I never really got comfortable with the bawdy.

[lyricnonsense.livejournal.com]

Oh you should have seen the fits I fell into when the muse decided it want Maes/Roy and it wanted Maes/Roy now. I don't do the sex scenes very often (if ever) and my main line of defense against the muse was "I can't write this! I have no personal experience of possessing the bits in question from which to draw!"

But of course the muse didn't listen to me. *sigh* I'm a pushover even to the voices in my head. :(

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

When the day comes on which I have to write about sex or its aftermaths (or its ... premaths?) in a way that requires any more detailed knowledge than that which I got from various biology and health classes, I'm going to shock my brother and amuse my friends by purchasing a copy of Sex for Dummies or The Complete Idiot's Guide to Sex and sticking it on the reference shelf next to the dictionaries and the thesaurus and the various manuals on mythology and plant life and such. :-)