#language mania

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Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 198

no words. Just gwan whud whud whud ee gwohhh kyah ngah silence. They're so claw machine toys right now

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Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 190

Someone else will have to come and enlighten me if Droma Anim is any existing language (google isn't helping) but,

The canonically spoken and written language on Earthland is English, as we've seen in Job requests, notes, etc. So the implication that Edolas has a different language is rather fascinating to me.

Is their main spoken language also english, and words like these aren't widely used? Kind of like Latin for us? They're just less used, but still exist, and some phrases are still well understood despite the language being 'dead'?

Or have our Earthlanders been dropped in a world where there's no common tongue, and magic helped them autotranslate so they never even noticed? Did Mystogan have to figure out a new language when he got here, or was English already a thing and there was no need? What if he did, how interesting would that be in relation to Wendy and the Nirvits? What about Porlyusica?

Headcanons, headcanons...

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Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 168

Love Lucy’s fit this chapter, but I also love how Cana and Levy are drawn in these chapters. I really feel the manga art peaked here. 

After this it starts getting sameface and too cutesy, which, isn’t a bad thing objectively because art progresses, but I still have a love for the old manga art. 

Honestly, despite how much I love Lisanna, I really can’t deny that her character while being dead brought so much enrichment to the story because of scenes like this. The fact that they once lost someone dear to them, and how much that scar sticks with all of them, is important to enforce just how much Fairy Tail as a guild treasures their comrades, and the exact kind of mistake they don’t want to repeat. 

This guild isn’t just fun and perfect, it’s got plenty of flaws and broken parts from Ivan, to Laxus, to Lisanna. But that’s why they continue to stick together stronger each time. 

The translation here is left vague which makes me sigh, but Lucy is, in fact, referring to Lisanna as ‘Natsu’s girl’ here in a possessive context. I honestly think it’s weirder that she says “Natsu was close to a girl a long time ago” like, they were so desperate to cull indication of romance in this translation that it just doesn’t make sense. Because uhm, he’s also close to Mira and Cana, what’s so weird about that? 

The way Cana and Levy say it, Lucy picks up that it’s a relationship closer than that or similar to what she has with Natsu now, and that’s why she cheekily teases the idea of a childhood puppy crush, because that’s the immediate impression it gives to her. Lucy is a romantic, after all, and she’s the kind that teases immediately, like when Happy met Carla. 

But this isn’t about whether Natsu is a romantic and who he likes more or not. 

What matters is that Lucy does in fact find it cute that Natsu used to have someone he treasured to a very important degree. And in the same way as when Mirajane told her about Igneel, she finds it bittersweet when she compares that story to give meaning to his current actions with her. 

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Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 74

this is one of the times where Fairy Tail gets so incredibly archaic with its phrasing-- genuinely, it’s a very good sprinkle of foreshadow.

Here, the King refers to someone as ‘Old Friend’. Lucy assumes he’s talking about Loke-- but he’s talking to Lucy. He’s calling Lucy ‘Old Friend” as a substitute to ‘you’, as that’s his verbal mannerism. He also refers to Lucy directly as ‘Old Friend’ when he arrives during Tartaros. 

This is Lucy’s first time meeting him-- and he refers to her as an old friend. This might be a hint to the Heartfilias in general, and Anna. The King considers Lucy an extension of the Heartfilia history with the Celestial Spirits. 

This is all... well, I have mixed feelings, because it really misses the vague nuance in the language and changes the meaning a little too far for my liking. It’s hard to really translate this, so fair I guess. 

but here in the translated-- the King uses a lot of thee and thou-- which are second-person pronouns completely absently in the original text. Here he doesn’t say ‘you have broken the rule’, he says ‘according to our agreement with humans, we cannot do this,’ then ‘It was indirect, but the result was the same’, again here there is no direct referral. He is not speaking to Loke, he is talking to Lucy, to tell her why Loke is facing this punishment. (I don’t fully translate the sentences because it’ll be long, but you get my point--) he doesn’t refer to Loke directly until the last part, where he specifically calls him by name. ‘And due to this, Leo the Lion, you have been denied return to the celestial realm.’ 

And here-- here, he doesn’t say Old Friend. He says ‘kisama 貴様 ’, the first time he actually uses a second-person pronoun. It’s an old way of saying it, so he’s not being rude, but he specifically uses his title and then a pronoun for him.

It’s hard to capture the nuance, so I don’t blame them for this mistranslations-- but here, he doesn’t say ‘if you speak thus unto my old friend’, (which would mistakenly imply he was talking about Loke,) he says ‘if you (old friend) are going so far to say this, then...’ which means he’s talking to Lucy, directly. Not talking to Lucy about Loke. 

Lucy is the Old friend he speaks of, and this is given to us right here, in our faces, to hint of a further, more personal history between Celestial Spirits and the Heartfilia family. 

It’s really an amazing piece of foreshadow. 

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Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 131

Fun translation puns! 8island is a based on his name, Ya(8) Jima(Island).

I’m a little sad to see stuff like these, cause we know that we never really go deeply into the political conflict between the government and the guild. 

The furthest we ever go is like, the whole thing with Tenrou and all, and that was more about the corruption of the government, the fact that both Zeref and Grimoire Heart were on the island, and a ‘necessary sacrifice’, than them actually being at odds. 

After this, the next relevance of the Council is in Tartaros where they start getting killed, but then it’s not even about them hating each other anymore, they’re essentially forced to come together against a mutual enemy, and after Gajeel and Levy joins them, there’s just nothing really about this ever again. 

I feel there was so much more that could be done with this whole subplot, especially since Mest was the perfect segue into exploring a plot like that. Fun translation puns! 8island is a based on his name, Ya(8) Jima(Island). 

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Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 113

I’m a bit iffy on the translation specifically, but it interests me that here they go with ‘they team up’ to damage you. They don’t calculate one by one, but as a collective, and retaliate together. The other lacrima are gleaming here, implying that two attacked her this time in retaliation.

This could be a more plausible reason to how Erza ends up surviving the attack later on, being that she wasn’t taking all 200 she destroyed on her own, but everyone was taking the total amount together, divided equally no matter how many each person destroyed. 

I mean yes, it could just be ‘Erza destroyed all of them and tanked the hit because she is cool like that’, but I really want to think of ways to mild down the near mary sue traits whenever possible. 

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The one thing I like most about Hiro besides his artwork but how he names his dragons. their so different and creative ,that I wonder how did he come up with their names?

I completely agree! My favourite name is strangely enough, Motherglare. It's a mother! And it's fucking scary. That's it. They're all actually pretty literal. Selene, for example, is literally greek for moon. (Which is why the girl character in Pokemon S/M is officially named Selene too.)

I'm not sure about the other dragons in 100yq cause I don't know all of them, but at least our main five are named after their elements!

Igneel-- Ignis, fire in latin Metalicana-- Metal, of course Grandine-- Hail in italian (also grandini) Weisslogia-- Weiss, white in german Skiadrum-- Skia, shadow in greek

And another one of my personal favourites-- Acnologia, though there's a meaning in greek that roughly translates to 'harbinger of the end of the age,' the Japanese pronunciation, being 'Aku no Logia', Aku being 'evil' and Logia meaning 'calling/oracle'. He's literally the Harbinger of evil. Which is why I'm fascinated that Weisslogia is literally the bringer of hope. I genuinely wish Sting's magic had been more personally vital to defeating Acnologia.

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Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 91

Ikaruga speaks in poems. I appreciate that the translations maintained the Haiku 5-7-5 form.