Forum - View topicVice & Luna - The Plural of Anime is
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MegaMooseJam2008
Posts: 23 |
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Possible Answer: This is the result of an English loan word being used by the Japanese, altered, then loaned back to English. The Japanese word "anime" comes from the English word "animation." When it made its way back to English speakers, we were subconsciously aware of that fact and pronounced "anime" the same as "animation." Actual Answer: People are lazy. Its been mispronounced for so long now, that nobody is going to change it. (Though they may use the Possible Answer above as a justification.) |
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encrypted12345
Posts: 723 |
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Usually, if I try to denote anime as a plural to the layman, I say something to the effect of anime shows. I generally expect most otaku to use anime and manga as both singular and plural nouns though. I don't hear animes and mangas that much. I think most official localization companies usually use the terms the way I assume most otaku use them, but I could be wrong.
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gridsleep
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I just say 'cartoons' and 'comics.' Nipponese cartoons. Nipponese comics. The plural of moose is moose. The plural of deer is deer. The plural of cannon is cannon. The plural of mouse is mice. And English speakers think Nippone is difficult to learn. Isn't it ironic?
Last edited by gridsleep on Tue Apr 24, 2018 4:38 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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gridsleep
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The verb of loan is lend. The past perfect participle of lend is lent. Christians celebrate Lent before Easter. Things related to Lent are Lenten. Isn't English cheerfully challenging? People say ahnime because they are not ahnahlly retentive. |
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2293 |
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I've also always heard the O in "cosplay" pronounced as in the English word "costume" from which it ultimately derives, even though IME that's phonetically closer to カ than the コ used by the Japanese word.
Anglophones, at least the ones I know here in the States, seem inclined to look at "A-N-G" and read it the same way as hang/sang/gang-bang/rang/fang/daaaang/Tang/wang/Aang. I mean, writing it out there, I guess there is precedent. (ETA because I had to figure out a way to get them all in one sentence: "Ah dang, it's time to go hang with the gang, drink some Tang, then use my wang to bang the girl with the fang who rang me and sang about Aang.") Also, technically, the plural of "anime" is "animaiden". |
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6580 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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Even then pronunciation isn't monolithic for native speakers. Have a listen to Kraftwerk's, Autobahn album. They're singing in German and pronounce the title as ORTobahn, not OUTobahn. Perhaps it's a Düsseldorfian variation? |
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wyntre_rose
 Posts: 111 |
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Thank you!! 
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Usagi-kun
 Posts: 877 Location: Nashville, TN |
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Just like with 'the' English language, the are also dialects from different countries or regions defined by man-made and natural barriers, or demographics and customs. One country's language will not necessarily sound unified, and depending where you go, quirks and accents can help identify these different places. Vowels or their equivalents are pretty common in many languages, but may develop different sounds or definitions.
I live in the South but had an opportunity to visit Canada one summer. It was funny how many Canadians kept asking me to repeat certian words or phrases just to hear my accent. Apart from a crazy naked guy running around the last few days, it is pretty peaceful here, but we have close to a hundred new people moving in every single day. They come from everywhere, but my favorites are from the Chicago area, Midwest, and Northwest. I can easily distinguish the WiscAAHnsin and MinnesOHta, ChicAHgo's and occasional "ae(eh)?" I remember meeting a voice actor at a local con who spoke in an panel about his audio book work. He said he liked to record historical non-fiction and really highlighted how important it was to him to portray the different accents in every Southern state when he addressed their letters and reports during the Civil War, which is absolutely incredible. Going back to stress marks, this is something kind of foreign for both Japanese and Latin. I think we are used to hearing VA's in anime perform their lines, but in traditional conversations, putting emphasis or enunciation on certain words or phrases depends not just on context and tone, but that famous Japanese formality. It doesn't mean they normally speak like robots, but very even and precise. Like hugging in the airport, Westerners just seem to be more dramatic, or at least, use this more on a day-to-day, common situational basis. Fun fact in Latin: Traditional writings really did not have a form of punctuation. No periods or commas, and nouns declined and verbs conjugated mostly by their 'endings', also funny thing, vowels that could help clarify things like number(of), gender(male, female, nuetral), and/or case(tense). If you want to use Latin as a foundational for most English derivatives, in the Western sense, Roman(see?)izeation manga would be mangae: plural, feminine(most a's are), 1st Declension (present tense, and can also be possessive). Another funny thing: The Latin 'g' is normally pronounced 'ngn', so mangnae. Julius Ceaser(Kaeser) did not say 'veni vidi vici'(I came, I saw, I conquered), but actually weni, widi, wici, which sounds more goofy than inspiring to me. 
If you made it through my wall of text, thank-you. I am REALLY interested in this kind of thing, and I might have made a mistake or two because it has been a long time since college. It is really cool to see how words fit together, almost like code, that can be a bread crumb trail even in historical settings where two groups separated by thousands of years used their own specific traits to communicate. Against all odds, here we are today, talking about what we love far beyond our own borders. |
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Coup d'État
 Posts: 179 |
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Curious, you think so? Which version are you listening to? Studio album "Autobahn" from 1974? Can I have a time stamp of what you mean? (If it's any other release, I should have those, too). Pronouncing an "r" there seems odd, especially since they totally drop the "r" sound in "fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der Autobahn", making it "faahn" instead of "fahr'n". The distorted vocals, on the other hand, hardly sound like language as it is. Aaaanyway, implementing original, foreign grammar is usually considered "wrong". Germans can get into heated arguments what the (German) past tense of "to download" is. gedownloadet? downgeloadet? downgeloadet?"Ich downloadete"? That's all rubbish, but so would be "downloaded". The proper German past tense ist "heruntergeladen". Another example is "computer". The proper English plural is "computers". Germans also use the word "Computer", even though we have our own (Rechner). However, the plural of both Computer and Rechner is Computer and Rechner. Anyone saying "Ich habe 2 Computers" would sound like an idiot. Because loan words tend to follow the grammar rules of their new home. And the other way around: The German plural of "Brezel" sure isn't "pretzels" (it's Brezeln). The plural of "Bratwurst", isn't "bratwursts", it's "Bratwürste". I don't really have deeper knowledge about your treatment of loan words from other languages, but I assume it's same-ish. For example, the Italian plural of "pizza" is "pizze", not "pizzas". The Italian singular of "paparazzi" is "paparazzo", but I'm sure I've heard that being used as a singular form before. From my understanding, the "right" way to form plural forms of loan words emerges from the way it's used the longest. Someone thought a foreign word was useful and/or doesn't really exist in their own language yet, starts using it, and it spreads. People then try to shoehorn the new word into the existing language the way it seems to fit best. "Mangas" is wrong the same way "pizzas" is wrong. I mean, the argument can be made, of course. But when it's only applied to one specific group of words that happen to align with one's own interests, then it's not really about language anymore. |
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Errinundra
Moderator
Posts: 6580 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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^
I think you've misunderstood me. I'm not talking about the pronunciation of the "r"; I'm referring to the first vowel. (Australian English is non-rhotic, so we usually don't pronounce the "r" after vowels. We pronounce flaw and floor identically. Canadians may find that odd.) In English the first vowel of auto- is the open-mid back rounded vowel: ɔ. It rhymes with fought or taught (and for Australians and some other English dialects also rhymes with fort or tort). I am told that in German the first vowel of auto- is pronounced as the diphthong /aʊ̯/. It rhymes with Maus (ie mouse) or twice in Sauerkraut. On the original album, purchased way, way back in the day (1974), Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider sing in German, but absolutely pronounce the "au" closer to the English way than the German. Listen @ 2.04 here and several more times in quick succession on the original, unmastered version. |
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Coup d'État
Posts: 179 |
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Interesting! The way the word is pronounced in the song is sounds perfectly normal to me. To my ears, it's free of any accent (I lived all over Germany and had conversations with people both from Switzerland and Austria. Accents indeed vary a lot by region.) I'd say the closest to translating the German "au" sound is the English word "sow" (as in female pig). More so in the British version than in the US one, but both seem fine. "Maus" and "mouse" are not quite the same. The way it's sung in the song doesn't feel close to "fought" at all to me. |
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LightningCount
 Posts: 238 |
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There's a lot of good phonetic discussion going on here. When it comes to pronouncing anime and manga, though, I think the key point is how they were introduced into the U.S. marketplace (and other foreign markets?). Too many people are looking at this from a present-day mindset. Originally, there was inconsistency in terms of what the stuff was called. Japanese animation, Japanimation, Japanese comics, and Japanese cartoons are all terms that were used, with varying degrees of accuracy. Too many people take the current situation with Crunchyroll and the like for granted. The first boom was essentially with Streamline Pictures, but the second boom was Manga Video/Manga Entertainment in the mid-90s, which pronounced its company "MAYN-GA." Manga was basically the Funimation of the mid-90s in terms of prominence.
As such, that informed a generation of viewers in how things were pronounced, and a number of those viewers helped to build the anime scene outside of Japan (indirectly or directly), which spread this notion. Right or wrong, it's not strange to hear that pronunciation at all. As I recall, I believe that anime was pronounced "ANN-AH-MAY" during this same time, cementing that pronunciation in a lot of peoples' minds. I can document that Toonami's Rising Run block in April 2000 used that pronunciation in its promos (and Toonami was sort of the last big "mainstream" bridge to where the fandom ended up culturally today). Also, because of Manga Video's prominence, I believe I recall there was some confusion in some circles in terms of calling anime and manga one thing: manga. During this time, anime/manga-style cultural mashups like the "Marvel Mangaverse" emerged. Things may change over time, but it's hard to change what was learned. It's like trying to tell people soccer should be called football. This website still uses the "ANN-AH-ME" pronunciation. Actually, I think the Crunchyroll Premium ad I've seen uses that pronunciation, too (not sure, though).There is an argument to be made for dialectical differences in foreign words. I've noticed a more curious phenomenon where Pokemon--"POH-KAY-MON"--is often pronounced "POKEY-MON" by a lot of people, especially non-anime fans. This I'm more confused about, because all the source material and advertising that I've experienced has always used the former pronunciation over the latter, and the logo even has an accent mark. Anyway, the pronunciation of anime and manga is not a big deal to me, but it seems like it is to a certain number of people. I'd be curious what that breakdown is. I think it might be a generational thing. The real issue with this confusion is when speaking to different audiences, you sometimes have to use one pronunciation or the other, or they will think you're ignorant, because they're not familiar with the history behind the different pronunciations. Some of the biggest proponents of anime may prefer to call it "ANN-AH-MAY"; same for manga. But people will sadly make judgments based on things like that. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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That's a good point: Languages change and evolve over time, and once enough people treat a word a certain way, that becomes the official way. Of course, English is a language cobbled up from four other languages and then co-opted words from most of the planet's other languages, and it will sometimes follow the rules of its original language (like the plural of "nucleus" as "nuclei," or "cyclops" as "cyclopes") and sometimes not (like the plural of "wok" as "woks" or "ninja" as "ninjas").
I've heard it pronounced that way a few times before. (It's also pronounced like that on an episode of FLCL's English dub, which I think will be coming up this next Saturday on Toonami.) I don't know about other people, but it always carries an air of smug superiority whenever I hear it like that, akin to people insisting that Japanese words and names must be pronounced with a Japanese accent.
And then there's how one episode of The Simpsons (not "30 Minutes Over Tokyo," but one where they went to a convention) had Bart calling it "Japanime." I find it odd that I seem to be the only one here who encounters that word, considering I hear people utter "Japanime" every now and then.
It's actually BECAUSE of that accent mark. I often see people react to a word with an accent mark over a letter "E" (rarely for any other vowel) and assume it must mean that's a long E sound. I don't really know why, but my best guess is that their logic is that if it's a short E sound, then it wouldn't have the accent mark over it. Another possibility is that some people who pronounce it "POKE-ee-mon" know the correct spelling but pronounce it wrong on purpose, either to anger the fans or to distance themselves from the franchise (which is a common reason behind "POKE-ee-man"). Whatever the case, the prevalence of that pronunciation is due to word of mouth: They hear other people say it and believe that's the proper way. This confusion could've been avoided had they spelled it "Pockemon" to begin with, though that might have still been too close to the pre-existing "Monsters in My Pocket" trademark. Still, the accent mark had no reason to exist, as all it's done is confuse people. Still better than the mess with some people who play a bit of Street Fighter and talk about Rye-ooh throwing his Hadookens. |
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EricJ2
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(And okay, fine: We WON'T make any vintage 90's-Saturday-morning "The Tick" jokes about carving our names in the moon...Nobody's thinking it anyway. See if I care.
 )
And it's because of Streamline, and Carl Macek, that we have the Japanimation/Anime/hybrid confusion that we have today-- In the early 90's, when Streamline wanted to sell Akira and Fist of the North Star as cool!, and edgy!, and different! and Certainly Not Your Parent's Toons, the trailer blasted "THIS is Japanimation!" The term became so identified with weirdo-cheesy 90's Streamline dubs, and the, yes, bad dubbing of afternoon Robotech and Star Blazers series, which were still seen as cheap and kitschy, that anime fans wanted to distance themselves from the snickers of the early 90's (who hadn't yet seen it or given up the anti-Japanese dismissiveness of the corporate 80's), and say that this was a new quality thing. It settled into the general unspoken idea that Voltron and Speed Racer were "Japanimation", and Studio Ghibli was "Anime". Although, of course, one would have to have an actual working knowledge of one OR the other to make the difference...It's bad enough that every Hollywood movie adaptation today is "Based on the hit manga!" 
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Apollo-kun
 Posts: 1213 Location: City 7, Macross 7 |
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The joke of this week's installment coupled with the comments have fully cemented this strip as the anime fandom's own CTRL+ALT+DEL.
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