I'm very cautious of asking this kind of question. And I generally avoid religion as a topic on internet. Tonight is an exception:)
Another thing. There are bits of the English scantilation where Sai addresses himself to God or mentions God. In the same pages in the French translation the text uses the plural (dieux). Now, is this becuase the original Japanese word was ambiguous or has one of these versions been 'localised'? Otherwise why should 'French' Sai be polythsist and 'English' Sai monotheist.
Japan has 800 million 'gods'. Yes, just as my Japanese friend laughed at the notion of a single god, we westerners laugh at 800 million gods. Neither of our cultures allow us to to anything else.
After our discussion, my friend decided to refer to the Japanese gods as 'kami' and not translate the word in her lectures.
Interesting that in french it would be plural. Maybe the translator thinks of the Japanese gods as being part of a pantheon religion, like the Greek or the Norse gods.
Not only does this come down to language differences (Japanese to English vs Japanese to French) but also it comes down to individual translators. Did they completely understand what was meant? Is that how they felt the meaning was best implied? When I looked at the first 'official' manga translations of Naruto and Iruka-sensei is called 'Master Iruka' I wonder what the hell that translator was thinking! 'Master Iruka' indeed!!! To completely understand you'd have to go to the original texts, translations can only explain so much unless you want to slog through a lot of footnotes or the whole thing becomes unwieldy! ^_^
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timeasmymeasure
Re: The End
Date: 2010-09-01 10:31 pm (UTC)Another thing. There are bits of the English scantilation where Sai addresses himself to God or mentions God. In the same pages in the French translation the text uses the plural (dieux). Now, is this becuase the original Japanese word was ambiguous or has one of these versions been 'localised'? Otherwise why should 'French' Sai be polythsist and 'English' Sai monotheist.
Re: The End
Date: 2010-09-01 10:40 pm (UTC)Yes, just as my Japanese friend laughed at the notion of a single god, we westerners laugh at 800 million gods.
Neither of our cultures allow us to to anything else.
After our discussion, my friend decided to refer to the Japanese gods as 'kami' and not translate the word in her lectures.
Interesting that in french it would be plural. Maybe the translator thinks of the Japanese gods as being part of a pantheon religion, like the Greek or the Norse gods.
Re: The End
Date: 2010-09-02 02:22 am (UTC)