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Ask Google |
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On Again Off Again |
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Googleshng - May 3 '04- 4:00 Eastern Standard Time
Every other day this week, my ISP has been completely shut down. Makes
things rather difficult for me it does. Here's hoping the trend doesn't hold.
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Random Fun
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sacrifice a little engel dungeon
taco head Googleshng
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Googleshng:
Well, you have your challenge people. Draw it and send it in.
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Quotage
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Hey Google,
Let me guess: the title page quote comes from "Dragon Warrior VII"? I guess so since the game has Guardians, not to mention Yuji HoriiÕs humor.
-Jeremy, the Duke of Otterland
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Googleshng:
I assume you're refering to last week's quote here which someone correctly placed Thursday, but either
way, nope. So... no tilde for you!
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What do we want? MYTHRI! When do we want it? DECEMBER!
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Dear Google,
I was wondering whatever happened to Mythri for the Gameboy Advance. I first
heard about this title when I was in highschool and now I'm almost done with
college and it still hasn't been released. I saw on your website that it's
suppose be released in December. Is this true? This title looks to be pretty
promising but is it ever come out.
Sincerely,
MetalDragon
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Googleshng:
To quote one of the best available sources on the matter:
"Team XKalibur was awaiting funding from their publisher
so if they have funding, they are no doubt working hard on the game
however, if they haven't yet gotten their funding, they're probably
working to make that happen."
When asked more specifically if that December date was realistic, this same source replied:
"heheheheheheheheheheheheheheehehehehehehehe
no."
I wish I had that sort of direct line with everyone in the industry.
Seriously speaking though, the time table here is actually typical. We all just wound up picking up on
Mythri much earlier than usual because A- It's being developed in the U.S. rather than Japan, B- The
developer has been personally going after coverage, rather than letting the publisher handle all PR in
a single push as the game nears completion, and C- People involved with the game write into this column
here and there. Believe me, if the developers of say, Legend of Dragoon wrote in here and there, you'd
hear about that 5 years before it came out too.
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Let's put this to bed, shall we?
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Good morning/afternoon/evening (circle applicable) to you, Sir/Ma'am:
I hate to write my first letter to this column as a correction, but I feel
that I have a moral obligation to correct your advice regarding the
pronunciation of Xenogears, simply because you got it exactly wrong. Now I'm
not usually a guy to nitpick such minor details, but I've had the same
argument with several of my friends, and they're always wrong too, so I was
hoping to use your column to set people straight on a larger scale. Nothing
personal, just correcting misperceptions wherever I can.
The first thing that should be done in looking at the pronunciation of
Xenogears is to look at the original katakana used in the title: Ä[ÄmÄMÄAÄX
(zenogiasu). Clearly, the authors wanted ZEH-no, because they use the
katakana for zeno, and katakana are pretty much a solid pronunciation guide
for Japanese.
Then, just in case the Japanese guys are mispronouncing it, as is often the
case, you can look at the original prefix in question, 'xeno', in the
original Greek. You will find it written ÄíÄÌÄèÄê. Xi - Eta - Nu - Omicron.
The eta in there has an 'eh' sound, so again, you get ZEH-no. Of course, if
you want to get really technical, it should be pronounced 'ksehnogears'
because of the initial xi, but English speakers don't usually use 'ks' as an
initial sound, so we simplified it.
Perhaps I'm being a bit critical, but that's just how it works. Oh yeah, on
a side note, I love the column. Been reading since the square.net days, and
it's held up remarkably well over the years. Keep up the good work.
Salvanis (I think that correction was longer than the original letter in
question...)
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Googleshng:
Sure was. Anyway though, you saved me a lot of trouble here honestly. Katakana is indeed very specific
in how it's pronounced, and is how people in Japan generally write words of a foreign origin. The only
problem is, it's fairly limited. For example, if you wanted to write "gears" the closest you could get
is, as you pointed out just now, is "gee-ah-su." Another sound you can't write out in katakana incidently
is "zee." You're stuck using either "zeh" or "jee." So, you don't have a leg to stand on from this angle.
Now, the greek angle is a little more workable, but I'm fairly sure you're less of an expert on it than
the various scholars of ancient greek and modern native speakers I know, none of whom have ever disagreed
with me on the subject, and popular usage is on my side too, along with this handy dandy dictionary.
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