Regarding the keywords in Japanese...

[Eggplant of the Twilight]

As a favor to a friend, I promised I'd ask about this, and here is probably the best place to ask, but anyway...

I have an important question... well, important to me, anyway... A lot of the 'keywords' in .hack//SIGN as well as the .hack games are two or even three words, not one. In the original Japanese releases of the animes, mangas, games, etc., were all of the keywords actually words, but some got turned into groups of words to keep the meaning more similar to the original Japanese keywords (as well as to maintain a poetic air to some of the keywords)? Or were a lot of them groups of words which add up to one meaning even then? (like 'Sea of Sand' instead of 'Desert', or 'Holy Ground' instead of 'Church.')

Anyone have any information about this at all? Thanks in advance.

Oh, the reason he wants it is because he's compiling a script for Infection, and probably the other 3 once he finishes the first.

[Junko]

As a favor to a friend, I promised I'd ask about this, and here is probably the best place to ask, but anyway...

I have an important question... well, important to me, anyway... A lot of the 'keywords' in .hack//SIGN as well as the .hack games are two or even three words, not one. In the original Japanese releases of the animes, mangas, games, etc., were all of the keywords actually words, but some got turned into groups of words to keep the meaning more similar to the original Japanese keywords (as well as to maintain a poetic air to some of the keywords)? Or were a lot of them groups of words which add up to one meaning even then? (like 'Sea of Sand' instead of 'Desert', or 'Holy Ground' instead of 'Church.')

Anyone have any information about this at all? Thanks in advance.

Oh, the reason he wants it is because he's compiling a script for Infection, and probably the other 3 once he finishes the first.

At last! I can rant about my experience with Japanese .hack!! ^^ Lol, jk. Interesting though (more interesting than CS225 work, at least), but no. Although the best way to understand this would be to have a good knowledge of Japanese grammar, I will attempt to explain. Let's take "Omega Server Hidden Darkside Holy Ground" as an example. In Japanese, it's called "Ω 隠されし月の裏の聖域" (read "Omega Server Kakusareshi Tsuki no Ura no Seiiki"). The thing about Japanese is that there are no spaces inbetween words, but the phrase is indeed six "words" (four "real" words and 2 "of"s). "Tsuki no Ura" is "Darkside of the Moon". So in fact, the translators did the opposite for this word, and took away words ^^; So yeah... ^^;;; That being said, alot of ideas that can be made with kanji characters take more than one English word to represent, simply because there's no way to do that kind of neologismness in English. ^^; So yeah, any other questions, let me know. ^^

[kboy7]

ok... I just need to know what neologismness is.

[Junko]

ok... I just need to know what neologismness is.

"neologism" = "a made up word". As in that's what it means, but it itself is a real word. neologism + ness kinda is a neologism, though, and well, it just means neologism+ness. K? ^^;

[kboy7]

lol that can be very confused for some people.

[Silence]

Woah! Hah! Heyas, Eggplant, it's Coconut from GameFAQs ^_^

I'm the one who asked you to ask around about the Keywords. Thanks for doing that... but you kinda forgot to report back to me XD Good thing I just found this board, so now I know the answer~ Veerry interesting... so it's pretty much the same in general - they really use groups of words for many of the 'keywords,' just like in the English translation... but some specific Keywords were changed in translation for various reasons... Cool! ^_^

Thanks for the help muchly, Junko. I've finished my script for .hack//INFECTION and MUTATION, and am working on OUTBREAK. The reason I want to know this sorta stuff, though, is 'cause I'm also working on a revised .hack game script, with additions and changes made were there are some things I viewed as imperfections or mistakes... like typos, and that annoying habit the scripters had of replacing long strings of dialogue with things like 'Kite explains the situation to so-and-so.' Sooo annoying. So yeah, that's why I'm doing a script revision in addition to putting the actual script online ^^ For fun~~

I really wish I knew Japanese so I could research more of the differences between the English and Japanese versions... 'course I'd need the Japanese game anyway, for the written stuff... oh well... mya...

Hee! So glad I found this forum. I've been looking for a place like this for weeks... none of the other .hack forums I've found have suited my purposes... too lacking in in-depth discussions... :/ But now that's over >:DDD

Fufufu.