Name the Aliens - In Japanese! A fun (sic) exercise in random lingustics!

[Aotrs Commander]

As usual with my infrequent threads, there is a purpose that requires some backstory so as not to seem completely random, only marginally insane. So bear with me...

I'm posting this here, rather than in the gaming forum as the problem is only tangentially game-related and more linguistic in nature. I have, for my wargaming, a new star fleet, the Rift Collective Expeditionary Fleet (actually Ground Zero Games' Scandanavian Federation models.) Anyway, the backstory of this said alien fleet includes, among other things, that their language is utterly unusable by humans, as it contains large chunks of telepathy and body language. So naming the ships and ship classes in their own language is pretty impossible. To start with, I went for my old stand-by of using extinct animals (extinct amphibians in this case) as a temporary, intending to replace them with something vaguel Elf-sounding (since their major foe is basically a crowd of space-fey.)

However, the first game - a first-contact type of game - I actually played was against the Imperial Japanese. So I thought it would be rather jolly (and a bit different) to give them Japanese designations. As well, as the Japanese player is a big fan of modern naval warfare, so I thought it would be fun to give them NATO-style codenames.

For those of you not in the know, NATO assigned reporting codenames to Soviet equipment; among the most visible of these would be the aircraft names (Flanker, Flogger, Fishbed) or missiles designation (Scud). Most of these names are generally nonsense words in context. For an idea of what I mean, here's a couple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NATO_reporting_names_for_miscellaneous_air craft) of (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NATO_reporting_names_for_fighters) pages (http://www.jedsite.info/codewords/sierra/su-electronics_series/soviet-electronics.html) of examples. Suitably chaotic, yes? (Some of my favourties in the latter link are Tee Plinth and Fish Bowl!)

So what I ideally want is a list of pseudo-random Japanese words/short phrases/names et al starting with the same letter (or perhaps a small number of groupings so I can assign them to different types of ships; maybe one for fighters, another for escort ships and so on.) However, as with many of my ideas, it's not so good in practise... My Japanese is nonexistant, being limited as it is to what I've picked up from the Naruto anime... I'm not even sure which letters would be the best to start with. Perhaps 'I' maybe? I really don't know.

(I'm trying very, very hard to resist the temptation to say 'R' and start with 'Ramen' in homage to Naruto...)

So, persons of the playground, I appeal to those of you who actually speak the lingo (if there are indeed any, but the Playground is as good a bet as anywhere!) for help in filling out a list. Can you help the Japanese Empire name their new intractable foe?

[randman22222]

For clarification, you want some random name for an alien empire? I took a couple years of Japanese...

EDIT: Oh, actually, the Japanese language support on this laptop is shot, so I wouldn't be able to help. Sorry. :smallfrown:

[Ashen Lilies]

He wants Japanese designations for alien ships, from what I can tell.

[Yiuel]

Something in the style Fugu, Fuurin, Futsuu, Funabashi?

I'd recommend using the same initial kana, since that would seem more Japanese-like. So Tanabata, Takumi, Tada, Tayoru would be together (initial た), but not Teriyaki (て).

Here the various words I have given, in Japanese :


河豚（ふぐ）(Fugu, the deadly eatable fish)、風鈴（ふうりん）(Small bells)、普通（ふつう）(Usually)、船橋（ふなばし）(Place name near Tokyo, means "Boat-bridge")
七夕（たなばた）(Tanabata, a special celebration)、巧み（たくみ）(Skilled)、ただ (various meanings)、頼る（たよる）(Rely)
照焼（てりやき）(Teriyaki)

[13_CBS]

^ Agreed with Yiuel.

Piggybacking off of Yiuel's idea...what if you made code designations that were alliterative to the normal Japanese word for the general kind of military craft? For example...

The Japanese word for "warship" appears to be 艦 ("kan", or "かん"). From that, you could have code names for other warships (destroyers, cruisers, submarines, and whatnot) all start with "kan" or "ka".

For example...

棺桶 ("kanoke", or "かんおけ") means coffin, and starts with "kan". This could be the designation for a specific type of cruiser, which is, of course, a warship.

[Yiuel]

^ Agreed with Yiuel.

Piggybacking off of Yiuel's idea...what if you made code designations that were alliterative to the normal Japanese word for the general kind of military craft? For example...

The Japanese word for "warship" appears to be 艦 ("kan", or "かん"). From that, you could have code names for other warships (destroyers, cruisers, submarines, and whatnot) all start with "kan" or "ka".

Might be fun to find some words beginning with "kan" かん.


For example...

棺桶 ("kanoke", or "かんおけ") means coffin, and starts with "kan".
This is so dark. I hope he uses that name for some dark without-window warship of doom.

[13_CBS]

Here's another one, a goofier example...

罐詰め ("kanzume", or かんづめ) = "canned food".

Make it the code name for, say, submarines.

...morbid humor, anyone? :smallamused:

[Yiuel]

...morbid humor, anyone? :smallamused:

A funnier one :

What about 歓迎（かんげい）"(to) welcome" for the flagship?

[littlebottom]

im no good with japanese, ive always wanted to learn it though, and not like "i fancy learning japanese" i mean "actively searching for somewhere that teaches it" but i found nothing local enough:smallfrown:

but what i know of the japanese, they would either go with something that is a play on words and silly or something overly serious...

some of the above posters play on words could be good though, some made me chuckle :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: also this baffles me

"ただ (various meanings)"

such as?

[Yiuel]

Tada ima = Just now
Tada hitotsu = Just one
Tada no hito = Ordinary person
Tada, (sentence) = However, ....

[littlebottom]

oh, cool... i was about to say "its strange having words spelt the same but meaning different things entirely on context" then realised we have loads too :smallredface: please forgive my idiocy it is almost 3AM for me :smallsigh:

[Yiuel]

oh, cool... i was about to say "its strange having words spelt the same but meaning different things entirely on context" then realised we have loads too :smallredface: please forgive my idiocy it is almost 3AM for me :smallsigh:

Bah, Japanese is weirder, as it has pronounced the same way, spelt differently.

But no problem, you're entirely forgiven.

Tetraglossia is an intense task on your mind though.

[13_CBS]

Bah, Japanese is weirder, as it has pronounced the same way, spelt differently.


Kanji...:smallfurious::smallfurious::smallfurious:

[Yiuel]

Kanji...:smallfurious::smallfurious::smallfurious:

Hahaha! What about spelt the same, pronounced differently? :P

[13_CBS]

:smallmad:

I've only had a year's worth of college Japanese under my belt, but...

"Oh look! The character for 'day' (日) appears in Nihon (日本)! So I guess it's pronounced 'ni'."

今日, 昨日: "Nope, it's actually pronounced 'ou'."

"What?"

日: "Actually, it's pronounced 'hi'."

"Wait--"

日曜日: "I object to that, since it's actually pronounced 'nichi', or 'bi'."

"But I--"

明日: "And I'm pronounced 'ashi ta'!"

"Hey--"

三日, 四日: "No, no, no, it's pronounced 'ka'. Don't listen to the others--"

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! JUST....SHUT UP!!! ALL OF YOU!!!"


:smallmad:

[Yiuel]

明日: "And I'm pronounced 'ashi ta'!"

This one is worse. The compound itself has two readings. (Well, three...)

It can be... Asu, Asita or Myounichi. You have other ugly ones, including 日本 which can be pronounced Nihon or Nippon. :smallbiggrin::smalltongue::smallsmile:

Yes, Japanese is that ugly.

[Aotrs Commander]

:smallmad:

*snip*

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! JUST....SHUT UP!!! ALL OF YOU!!!"

:smallmad:

And that is why I've never tried to learn Japanese! I struggled enough with French! My foreign languages skills are very typically English in that they are nearly nonexistance and consist entirely of shouting very slowly "You Speaky English? IIIING-ER-LISH???" (because evry English person knows (sic) all foriegners really speak English, they're just being difficult by pretending they don't, dont'cha know old chap, pip pip tally-ho and all that*...)

Though I sort of sometimes wish my lingusitic skills would stretch to Latin (or maybe Sindarian)...

(Also, odd observation: I see some the kanji in the posts as squares, but I can see all of them when I quote a post, prior to posting it. Wierd.)



*A cynical soul might suggest that this might be why they pretend, even if they really do speak English...



Anyway, enough banter; to actual business or something vaguely resembling same...!)


^ Agreed with Yiuel.

Piggybacking off of Yiuel's idea...what if you made code designations that were alliterative to the normal Japanese word for the general kind of military craft? For example...

The Japanese word for "warship" appears to be 艦 ("kan", or "かん"). From that, you could have code names for other warships (destroyers, cruisers, submarines, and whatnot) all start with "kan" or "ka".

For example...

棺桶 ("kanoke", or "かんおけ") means coffin, and starts with "kan". This could be the designation for a specific type of cruiser, which is, of course, a warship.

Actually, that last one is very good, since the Rift Collective ships actually look vaguely coffin-shaped (http://www.star-ranger.com/FullThrust.htm) (second set of ship pictures down, under ScanFed). At least to the point a starship crewman might see them from a distance, through his terror induced haze, while watching his fleet get carved up!

So then, let's go with that for our starter for ten. So:

Kanoke (coffin)
Kanzume (canned food)
Kanji (why the heck not, it is fairly random...)
Kankuro (yes, yes, I know, I guess I've got to have one somewhere...)


A funnier one :

What about 歓迎（かんげい）"(to) welcome" for the flagship?

Um...maybe, if you can tell me what the romanisation is! (Remember, I'm hard-pressed just to recognise kanji from, I dunno, Chinese or Korean script! Hell, I don't even know if they use the scripts or not!)

I'm all for mixing some humourous things in here...my New Anglican Confederation fleet was (before it grew to big) entirely named in words starting with in-. My favourite, though now showing it's age political satire-wise, is my Corvette squadron Incompetant, Inconsistant, Incomplete, Incontinent, Inconsequent and Incongrous, commanded by Major John Grey...



Keep those suggestions coming folks!

[Yiuel]

And that is why I've never tried to learn Japanese! I struggled enough with French! My foreign languages skills are very typically English in that they are nearly nonexistance and consist entirely of shouting very slowly "You Speaky English? IIIING-ER-LISH???" (because evry English person knows (sic) all foriegners really speak English, they're just being difficult by pretending they don't, dont'cha know old chap, pip pip tally-ho and all that*...)

Poor you, French!

(As a sidenote, I'm a native French speaker. Also half-native English. It helps a lot. I was then able to but a lot of skill points in Japanese and other languages. Quettan Quenyalambë, kaj Esperanto, but these are really easy.)


Um...maybe, if you can tell me what the romanisation is! (Remember, I'm hard-pressed just to recognise kanji from, I dunno, Chinese or Korean script! Hell, I don't even know if they use the scripts or not!)

Sorry. It's Kangei.


Keep those suggestions coming folks!

Kantan, for your most easily manoeuvrable ship. (Kantan = easy)

[littlebottom]

spoilered for want of not side tracking thread:
im just curious now, as i have said above ive looked about for places that teach japanese, yet in my local area i cannot find somewhere.

so does anyone know of something online thats any good, prefereably without having to pay as i am currently skint:smallredface:

or.......... really really rude question here but...... could anyone here help me learn it? pweeaaaaase?:smallredface::smalltongue:

[Aotrs Commander]

Okay, here's what I've got so far:



“Kanoke” Strike Carrier (“coffin”)
“Kangei” Heavy Battleship (“(to) welcome”)
“Kankuro” Heavy Cruiser (Famous ninja master)
? Escort Cruiser
? Heavy Destroyer
“Kanzume-B” Modular Transport Destroyer (Strike) (“canned food”)
“Kanzume-A” Modular Transport Destroyer (Missile) (“canned food”)
“Kanji” Escort Frigate (Japanese script symbol)
“Kantan” Patrol Frigate (“easy”)
? Frigate

? Fighters
? Fightercruisers (effectively space heavy bombers)

When all put together like that, it starting to look pretty good, ain't it! Ace suggestions, chaps and chappesses...

"Kantan" was assigned to the Patrol frigates, since the Japs actually blasted them up quite nicely last time...

Come on folks, I just need three more (for the moment anyway!)

I think we might need a different stem for the fighter/fightercruiser names...any suggestions. (Trying really hard not to go with "Ramen" and "Rasangen"...!)

[13_CBS]

More "Kan" stuff:

感化 = "kanka", meaning "influence" or "reform". Maybe some kind of communications ship?

奸知 = "kanchi", meaning "guile" or "craftiness". Maybe a stealth ship?

監察 = "kansatsu", meaning "investigator". Maybe some kind of scout ship?

乾材 = "kanzai", meaning "dry lumber". Maybe a ship that the Japanese find to be particularly easy to blow up (since, you know, dry lumber supposedly catches on fire pretty easily)?

As for airplanes...

機 ("ki") appears to be associated with airplanes (along with machines and stuff). Maybe you could use "ki" as the stem for aircraft?

危機 = "kiki", meaning "crisis".
刻 = "kigi", meaning "a scratch".
饑渇 = "kikatsu", meaning "starvation".
雉 = "kigishi", meaning "pheasant" (a type of bird, this one being a particular species called "Phasianus versicolor")
鬼神 = "kishin", apparently meaning "fierce god" (though the Kanji, if pronounced in Korean, simply means "a ghost").

[Aotrs Commander]

Thanks folks! That at least has given me enough names to cover all the ship classes I have so far.

(Though I hear GroundZeroGames rumbling on the horizon about more new starships soon...so if anyone has any more suggestions, I'm still listening!)