Subtle ways of demonstrating a character�s personality through the use
of bad grammar.

One thing I have noticed is that some fic writers don�t give much
thought to giving their characters different voices. This essay is an
attempt to explain ways to do that.

The most basic way to demonstrate that a character has just learnt a
language is by using deliberately bad grammar. This is what Viz has done
with Shampoo; her grammar is truly atrocious. But it is also pretty bad
within the original Japanese. The poor grammar in Japanese is not
apparent at first glance for a simple reason. Japanese granmar is so
different from English grammar that Shampoo�s mistakes are, quite
literally, lost in the translation. Without being fluent in English,
Chinese, and Japanese, it would be impossible to appreciate in full the
poor grammar of the original. Instead, Viz chose to acknowledge that
Shampoo speaks poor Japanese, and then decide *how* Shampoo�s grammar
would be bad.

Always refers to herself in the 3rd person: �Shampoo like...� This is
emphatically not true of genuine attempts by Chinese speakers to learn
English. Many Japanese girls will speak this way to act �kawaii�.

Odd ways of combining nouns: �...boy-type Ranma.�

Dropping articles (the, a): �We go on date?� This is actually
characteristic of Russian, Chinese and Japanese. Native Arabic speakers
may tend to drop �a�, as Arabic lacks that word.

Poor use of auxiliary verbs: �You want Shampoo give Ramen now?� The
words �do, to, you, the� have all been dropped here. Only the bare
minimum words to get the meaning across have been used.

Frequent lapses into Chinese. I will never understand why some Chinese
has been romanised, and others left as kanji in the Viz translation.

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Viz apparently chose to render Ukyou�s accent as an American deep south
accent (someone please confirm this... I haven�t got the English
versions of the manga that far). But her accent is officially described
as �kansai�? What does that mean in real terms?

�mokarimakka� -- "How is business?"
Osaka has been the city of merchant since the Middle Ages. So people
living in Kansai often exchange greetings like merchant. Other �business
� expressions probably get used fairly often too.

In Kansai -su is often omitted from verbs. So, masu ka in standard
Japanese become makka, desu ka become dekka, and desu na become denna.
The number of syllables often decreases, and long vowels, especially at
the end of words, are shortened. Omoshiroi becomes omoroi. And the best
known change is ya in place of da/desu.

But how can this clipped accent be best represented in English? It is
certainly not accurately represented by a deep south accent.

�Stu,� I said, �let�s take that one piece at a time. Are no �local laws�
so you couldn�t be put to death under them. Your offence was *not*
�trivial,� I simply made allowance for ignorance. And wasn�t done
casually, or boys would have dragged you to nearest lock to zero
pressure, shoved you in, and cycled. Instead were most formal � good
boys! � and paid own cash to give you trial. And didn�t grumble when
verdict wasn�t even close to what they asked. Now, anything still not
clear?�

This is Standard English, but with words dropped in particular places,
while still retaining all the essential information. It is from Heinlein
�s �The moon is a harsh mistress�, and is my idea of what a Kansai
accent would actually be if an honest attempt was made to translate it
into English. I can only guess that either Viz was too stupid to realise
this, or they thought westerners wouldn�t be able to make sense of the
cultural context. Whichever, I look forward to the fic that gives an
honest attempt to reflect Ukyou�s accent.

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However, just because a character is a native speaker of a language,
doesn�t mean you can�t give them a schtick. Other methods for
characterising someone�s speech include:

�You and me� vs. �You and I� vs. �The two of us�. The first is a bit
sloppy but common in normal speech (Ranma and Ryouga), the second found
in well-educated people, formal situations, and people being pretentious
(Kunou, Kodachi). The last could be used to express an accent, such as
Ukyou�s. I�ve always preferred stories that attempt to give kansai-ben a
unique accent, rather than just saying �it is a Texas twang� or �Deep
South�. The third way just sounds that little bit friendlier.

�I�ll� vs. �I will� vs. �I shall�. �I shall� is very formal, and as such
is perfect for Kunou-types. I honestly cannot imagine Kunou ever using
the future tense in any other way. This goes for contractions in
general. Kunou seems to always use the most ornate speech possible. So
it would be �Is it not� and �it is�.

Characteristic ways of asking questions: �... eh?� vs. �... no?� vs.
�... yes?� vs. �Do you ...?� vs. �You like ...?� vs. �Shall we ...?�.
Questions can be asked in a number of different ways, but different
people tend to use the same set phrases over and over again.


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Rhialto
I wept because I had no Internet, until I met a man who had no
electricity.