Forum - View topicHow do you pronounce.
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Klampo
 Posts: 93 Location: Pennsylvania |
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My-Hime
and while Im at it, Rurouni |
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shadow_guyver
 Posts: 307 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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I think it's:
My-He-May (<- pronounced like the common English words that they are) And Roo-Ro-Nee (<- More of a phonetic thing, here) |
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11440 Location: Frisco, TX |
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A quick lesson of Japanese vowel sounds:
a = short 'ah' as in 'dawn'' e = short 'eh' as in 'Met' i = short 'ee' as in 'feet' o = short 'oh' as in 'boat' u = short 'ooh' as in 'rude' Please note that if you see Romaji (Japanese words written in English) that most vowels you see will carry a short sound. Don't emphasize them or make them longer than they actually are. However, there are also ways to write the longer vowel sounds: aa = long 'ah' ei = long 'eh' ii = long 'ee' ou = long 'oh' uu = long 'ooh' Basically just take the sounds of the short vowels and draw them out twice as long. Anyway, "My Hime" My = the English "my" Hime = Hee-meh (means "princess" in Japanese), "Rurouni Kenshin" Rurouni = Rooh-rOH-nee (emphasize the long 'oh' in 'rOH', the word is Japanese for "wanderer") Kenshin = Kehn-sheen (short vowel sounds, don't emphasize them, the word is his name, but could also roughly translate to "swordsman," though I tend to not translate his or other peoples' names and treat them like proper nouns) Note: I don't know Japanese, but I know how to pronounce it, so if my translations are messed up, I apologize  .
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shadow_guyver
Posts: 307 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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Tony, you are so much more accurate then my quick fix.
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Aokage
 Posts: 160 Location: The Chaparral of California |
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Though I am too late to give a lesson on how to prounounce the words, but I can tell you that Kenshin is the formal term for a sword master in Japan. It tends to be translated as "Sword Saint." I am not positive, but I believe that Ruroni is just a mistranslation of the word Ronin...and for some reason it stuck. A Ronin is a masterless samurai. So the title fits well given that Himura is a wandering samurai and an incredible swordsman.
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Emerje
 Posts: 7403 Location: Maine |
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Tony is better at explaining this than I would be (being a Kenshin superfan), but "ruroni" was actually created on purpos to describe Kenshin. Kenshin may be a wandering samurai, but he isn't masterless (he still obays Hiko) so Ronin doesn't really fit him. Emerje |
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Klampo
Posts: 93 Location: Pennsylvania |
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tnx everyone
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11440 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Now that's where you lose me. Is he really a samurai? Because I was under the impression that he fought against them and the Shogunate during the Bakumatsu. I don't believe he practiced bushido or anything like that, nor did I hear about him ever serving under any feudal lords. A lot of people misinterpret him as being a samurai when I believe he's technically just a swordsman. Sure, he carried the title of hitokiri in his hayday as THE top assassin of the Imperialists, but I just want people to know that while he does come from a time of (fading) samurai, he is NOT one of them. He's just a guy with (amazing) swords skills, and I think I even heard that Watsuki just made up the term rurouni. Maybe.. so we don't confuse Kenshin with ever being a samurai? 
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Aokage
Posts: 160 Location: The Chaparral of California |
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I am not positive tha Himura Kenshin is a samurai. I do know for a fact that the word Kenshin means "Sword Saint" because you can learn this by reading most any of the translatoins of The Book of Five Rings by Mityamoto Musashi. Anyways, I took it upon myself and from other sites that I have read, that Ruroni is a mistranslation of Ronin. If that is the case, he would have to be a samurai, otherwise the title wouldn't apply. In Samurai Champloo's first episode, when Mugen and Jin are captured, Jin is vefered to as "vagabond Ronin" where as Mugen is simply refered to as a vagabond. So...i'm drawing upon all of these references in order to come to a conclusion. But you may be right. He may just be like Mugen. A very skilled wandering swordsman.
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shadow_guyver
Posts: 307 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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Okay, what do you mean by mistranslation? I ask because the name of the series, in Japan, is Rurouni Kenshin. So by mistranslation, are you saying that Nobuhiro Watsuki used the wrong word or something?
Anyway, my understanding was that rurouni was a made up word based on ronin, as they have vaguely similar meanings and sound alike as well. |
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Emerje
Posts: 7403 Location: Maine |
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Correct, I blame ADV, they've even got me doing it. Emerje |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11440 Location: Frisco, TX |
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I'll take your word for it. I haven't read those publications, but I think the same concept carries over through Chinese fiction, more specifically of the martial arts variety and in the form of those wuxia and "flying swordsman" movies. I've seen a lot of those where they like to refer to the upperclass or highly skilled swordsmen as a "sword saint" or something of that nature, so maybe it's some kind of "old school" method of putting that sort of quality into context.
Good point. It's just that when I think samurai, I usually think of this. Jin doesn't seem to fit that description either, so I'm not sure if the Japanese percieve the actual title of samurai the way I read it in that link or what, but since both Champloo and Kenshin are ficticious writings, each respective term for those two characters might just be for the pure purpose of making them sound more intriguing.
I think he did make up that word, but having not read the manga or anything, I don't know if there's some kind of omake in any of the manga that might explain it. I believe abunai offers a pretty good answer in this post.
Oh yeah.. then there's that crappy, bastardizing, but marketable misnomer of a title "Samurai X".... That's probably THE major reason a lot of people mistake him (Kenshin) for one  .
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Aokage
Posts: 160 Location: The Chaparral of California |
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I think this all comes down to the habit of westerners, to refer to any Japanese (or asian for that matter) swordsman, as Samurai. I've seen numerous websites call Mugen a Samurai, when in fact he is the farthest thing from a Samurai. I have not seen all of Kenshin, so I was unaware that he still served somebody. But let me ask, does he serve this person as a personal warrior (a Yojimbo) or as a soldier. Effectively, that is all a Samurai really is. It is the warrior class in Japan that could be paralleled to the European Knight. You are born a Samurai (even women could be Samurai) and sword skill has nothing to do with it. You could have the skill of a Yagyu (a famous sword school in feudal Japan) and it wouldn't matter, if you weren't born into a Samurai family. The only person given Samurai rank that wasn't born a Samurai, was Oda Nobunaga's retainer, Saosuke (I may have misspelled that). He was an African slave, given to Nobunaga as a gift from a missionary. Nobunaga was fascinated by his black skin. So rather than make him a slave, he made him a Samurai. But anyways, the point is, that a Samurai is just a noble soldier born to serve in a personal army to a Shogun or Daiymo. So having an employer as a Samurai, and having a master, are two different things. The even more literal translation of Ronin, is a Samurai without employment. You could be a Samurai that teaches sword skills, and not be called a Ronin. Ronin is more of a formal title for a Samurai, as opposed to a state of being. Sort of like honorable discharge and dishonorable discharge, in the U.S. army.
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11440 Location: Frisco, TX |
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He never served under his master in any shape or form. He just learned swordsmanship from him, then decided to leave and use what skills he had for a cause he thought was worth fighting for. When Kenshin left, his master, Hiko Seijiuro, disowned him but later took him back in during the Kyoto arc because Kenshin begged and convinced Hiko that he couldn't beat Shishio and save Japan without the final teachings of Hiten Mitsurugi. The only kind of allegiance Kenshin ever had was for the Imperialists, but I think he acted in accordance to what he himself wanted to help create, as opposed to just serving under some kind of pre-established house of power like the samurai had been doing for ages under the Shogunate and feudal lords.
I don't think Hiko was ever mentioned as being a samurai, at least not in the anime. I always believed that he, like his predcessors, were wandering swordsmen trying to carry out whatever the times would dictate through their teachings of Hiten Mitsurugi. But since I don't really know anything about Hiko's past prior to when he found Kenshin, I can't say what the initial purpose of those other Hiten Mitsurugi swordsmen were. They might've been samurai, ronin, or just a bunch of wanderers. |
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Aokage
Posts: 160 Location: The Chaparral of California |
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With a Samurai, the term masterless is refering to an employer, as in "serve no master" as opposed to master in the sensei sense of the word. But after the story you gave, it is obvious that Kenshin is not a Samurai. He has a sensei, but he is not employed as a yojimbo, a teacher or a soldier. He truly is just a wandering swordsman. Thank you for the clairfication.
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