On names, titles, translation and transliteration

[kate]

So I saw this post on tumblr about fic that has Lan Wangji say "Wei Ying" instead of "you" and that it is not at all how it would be translated from the Chinese and it's a bit mystifying considering it doesn't happen in the source material at all but it seems to have become a fic convention.

I know for a fact I have done this in at least in one fic, if not more than one, and I think it might be related to this other post on tumblr about Lan Wangji talking in a higher register of speech, generally. (Hilariously, that post says it's about Lan Wangji but it's really more about Wei Wuxian and the way his register speaks to plot, characterization, and mood, but it's a fascinating read either way.)

So what I'm thinking happened with the whole Lan Zhan saying "I love Wei Ying" instead of "I love you" phenomenon (and that's only one example – there are zillions more) is that it is English speakers trying to capture Lan Wangji's register in a way that feels appropriate to them, even if it doesn't translate directly to or from the Chinese. English doesn't have a formal "you" like, say, French. There's just the word "you" for both formal and informal, singular and plural. And it is inherently personal. When English speakers are speaking formally (and I think this might even be truer for Brits, as Americans are inherently less formal), we don't say the word "you". We drop into other weird ways to distance ourselves from the conversation. I can think of a bunch of ways to do this (the royal we, using the word "one" instead of pronouns, etc.) but I think there are some ways in which Chinese uses names that are very foreign to an English ear, so what we've done is try to transliterate the feeling of Lan Wangji's register using something that wouldn't perhaps be directly translated that way, but which gives a similar feeling, using a device (using names in a situations where typically English speakers would use pronouns) that is used in the Chinese language.

I don't know that makes it right, but I think people's hearts are in the right place. It's about the sound of the thing – the rhythm in the turn of phrase, the music of the words. We're trying to recreate something we feel about Lan Wangji's mode of expression in a way that both gives the right connotation within the English language and yet feels like it comes from the Chinese. At least that's what's sort of lurking in the background when I write those things. Now to figure out if I need to change it. I can't tell if it's somehow offensive or just odd-sounding.

Ah, the joys of writing in a language where the canon is translated. I swore to myself I would never do this, and yet here I am. Someone save me.

Comments

[recessional]

Pedantic: we actually only have a formal second person pronoun. What we don’t have is an intimate second person, as we abandoned “thee” in favour of only using the formal/plural.

[kate]

REALLY! That's fascinating! I mean, the end result is the same, I think, but I had not known that it was the intimate "you" we got rid of instead of the formal one. Are there other languages like this? I mean, Chinese doesn't have a formal "you" either (at least in what I've learned so far, which is, admittedly, limited), which I'm guessing is why all the name/title stuff to indicate deference.

[recessional]

I don’t know of any! But yeah thee/you operated just about exactly like tu/vous but circa the Renaissance thru Enlightenment “thee” dropped abruptly (as language development goes) out of fashion.

There’s some potential links to the growth of cities and lash back against the idea that those of “higher” social standing were allowed to refer to you in a way that established in their very language that you were their inferior, so that the use of “thee” outside of really personally intimate relationships became construed as an automatic insult - thus it surviving in love poem format (“shall I compare thee to a summers day”) and in reference to/from God much longer than in general usage - and as it wasn’t in COMMON usage it dropped off entirely....

.... until ironically it was viewed as archaic and because we then got the idea that “archaic” = “formal” people get the idea we dropped our POLITE second person when it’s exactly the opposite.

[kate]

*rubs hands together* Learning shit about language day, I LOVE THIS! This is so very awesome, and also, lol, archaic = formal, it's so weird how brains work. How everything in the past is seen through that lens. THIS IS SO COOL!

[recessional]

Now you too can either giggle or hide your face in horror when a writer has a knight refer to his king with “thee” and doesn’t get in Deep Shit immediately. XD

[kate]

YASSSSSSSSS! Damn, the things you don't know when you watch historical shows! Can't wait to see this is action.

[recessional]

To be fair if you’re ever engaging with, say, Shakespeare it’ll do the opposite - the difference was still operating for him and being alert to it is SUPER illuminating in terms of characterization and character relationship development (there are ABSOLUTELY power plays, shade, passive aggression, overt aggression and entire love stories told in the shift in and out of “thee”), so there’s the upside.

Ditto Tolkien. Especially Tolkien, honestly.

[kate]

Oh, that's awesome. I mean, of course in Shakespeare, I wish I had known it when I was studying it!

And it doesn't surprise me about Tolkien, either, tbh, though it's not something I would've put together on my own.

[goss]

To be honest, ever since I read that post a good while back shedding light on the matter, it's bothered me every time I see the "Wei Ying" instead of "you" being used in fic.

Because somehow before that time, I simply thought it must have been some direct Chinese translation phrasing that I wasn't aware of. So like you say, my brain automatically interpreted LWJ's use of "Wei Ying" into some sort of Formal or special way to say "You" when addressing him.

But now, knowing it stems from something not canon, my brain has a hard time overlooking it. It doesn't affect my enjoyment of the overall story, but I do stumble a bit while reading, every time I see its use.

[kate]

Yeah, I'll be aware of it now too. These posts always make me aware of these things. The first one made me think about speech patterns in general, and also that while Lan Zhan doesn't speak often, he isn't silent, which happens a lot in fics too.

I had a similar assumption before, that it was somehow from the translation, but I think the intent is pure - I mean, the fact that we thought it was from the translation means they did manage to capture the feel they were going for, likely? And the argument of that post is that they are equals, which, yes, okay, but it doesn't then take into consideration the second post I linked up there, about Lan Wangji's register.

What I'm wondering is if Lan Wangji is less formal when it's just him and Wei Wuxian, and perhaps dropping into a less formal register happens. That's way too subtle for a non-Chinese speaker to catch, I'm guessing, and from the translation of the novel, I didn't notice any change in tone, but translation is such a personal thing, each translator is going to choose those sorts of things differently. (And it's been a while, lol.)

[nineveh_uk]

Those links are fascinating, thank you! I suspect that some of it is a variation on the existing fandom habit even in English of making certain character speak ultra-formally in certain ways they don't in canon e.g. fic in which a character doesn't use contractions even though they do all the time in canon, because their actual speech patterns are missed and short-hand is reached for.

Though I suspect that with The Untamed it doesn't help that the Netflix subtitles at least really do muck about with names and honorifics* in ways that can really change the register. I wouldn't be surprised if there are times where "Wei Ying" or other names get used in these where the text just has "you".

*I appreciate that there are multiple reasonable ways to deal with the issue of honorifics in translation, but I can't help feeling that just dumping them is not the solution.

/drive-by flist :-)

[kate]

Yeah, I know that tendency, particularly when someone is foreign or alien in some way, but it's interesting, then, that only Lan Wangji would get this treatment. I suppose his character is supposed to be a bit standoffish, compared to Wei Wuxian's breezy loquaciousness.

I guess I would assume that everyone had a bit of the formal register when talking between generations, for example, or even the older generation in general (Lan Qiren for sure, right?). But no - in fic, it's just Lan Wangji, at least in most stories in English. And I think it might even be specific to Wei Ying, though that's probably because of the fact that he hardly speaks to anyone else.

There's a lot I would blame on Netflix's subs, but honestly, not this. It's been a while since I watched it, but even before I was learning Chinese I could tell that the characters say names and titles way more often than they would in English, or did in the subs (as you point out). Since Netflix is less formal, (let's not talk about the way they often just use "first" names instead of full names) and fanfic writers seem to be trying to create more formality, Netflix isn't to blame for this one. Maybe fandom zeitgeist - I feel like I started doing it after I read it somewhere, though not consciously, of course.

And you're right, not in love with the way Netflix translated the names and titles, for the most part. But I'm of a particular school of thought about translations - I prefer it to be closer to the original, even if it isn't as "smooth" in the language it's translated into. Netflix, I'm sure, is more interested in making it plain to English viewers, so a lot of the nuance gets lost.

[torachan]

This happens in Japanese fandoms, too, because Japanese rarely uses second-person pronouns and almost always leaves them out or uses the person's name or title instead. So all these people who think a translation is only correct when it's super stilted and awkward copy that directly into English and have people constantly saying things like "Does Naruto want to go to the movies?" when speaking directly to Naruto or whatever. It's so terrible.