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Scott DiBerardino (sdiberar@student.umass.edu)
Wed, 29 Nov 2000 15:29:07 -0500
> What with the dub of First Gundam appearing next year, I figured it would be
> time for a new fun game :P
> As far as I know, I've got a good handle on the pronouciation of most OYW
> mobile suits, but some of them are a bit ... odd, and I wonder if
> Bandai/Sunrise/Tomino is going to "Americanize" the pronounciation to make
> it easier on the kids. Wing was pretty easy since everything was essentially
> English words (Save from the Shen-long/Altron), but what about, say, the
> Gouf?
As a studying Japanese linguist, allow me throw in some (semi-)educated
comments...
> Spelling: Gundam
> Japanese Pronounciation: Gandamu
> Possible English Pronounciation: Gundam (we already know this one)
That's pretty much it. Note that the Japanese "a" here is pronounced like in
"father", though most Americans would pronounce it like the first and last
"a"'s in "banana" (i.e. as a schwa, the reduced central vowel.) The
Japanese usually turn schwas into "a" when rendering loanwords.
> Spelling: GM
> Japanese Pronounciation: Jim
> Possible English Pronounciation: Jee-Emm
I've always said "jee-emm", but the correct Japanese pronounciation would be
close to "jeemu". The "i" is equivalent to the American 'long i' (in tone,
not length) rather than the 'short i'.
> Spelling: Zaku
> Japanese Pronounciation: Zack
> Possible English Pronounciation: Zak-oo
The difference here is that the Japanese pronunciation does in fact have an
"oo" at the end, but the vowel in the "ku" syllable often reduces to almost
nothing in the standard dialect of Japanese. Another example, "shi" reduces
even more frequently, particularly before stops: "yamashita" is usually
heard as "yamashta".
> Spelling: Gelgoog
> Japanese Pronounciation: Gel-goog-uh (I believe, anyway. Pretty sure its
> with hard G's)
> Possible English Pronounciation: Gel-goog (hard G's all around)
Again, pretty much the same, although the final vowel in Japanese is a
reduced "oo" rather than "uh".
> Spelling: Gouf
> Japanese Pronounciation: Goof-uh (this was on the GML a while back)
> Possible English Pronounciation: Gouf (sounding like Gouge?)
Like Gelgoog, Gouf is pronounced closer to "goofoo".
> Spelling: Gyan
> Japanese Pronounciation: No idea, never saw it in action
> Possible English Pronounciation: Gai-ann
The 'y' in this spelling is not exactly a separate consonant. Rather than
"gee-an", it's all one syllable: "gyan". I've actually seen this romanized
as Gann, which would make sense... the Japanese write English "cat" as
"kya-tto", since there is frequently an on-glide 'y' associated with English
'c'. "guy-an" is dead wrong.
> Spelling: Dom/Rick Dom
> Japanese Pronounciation: Dom/Reek Dom (AFAIK, correct me if i'm wrong. I do
> remember Reek Deeass from Zeta, so i'm assuming its the same)
> Possible English Pronounciation: Rick (rhymes with lick) Dom (rhymes with
> bomb)
The Japanese "o" is invariably pronounced as in the English "boat", so the
Blue Destiny dub has it half right pronouncing it as 'dome'. However, the
vowel is not quite up to that length (i.e. not bimoraic). The actual
pronunciation should be "domu" with the final vowel somewhat reduced.
Myself, I say "Dom" with the short English 'o', but I do it out of habit
even though it is clearly wrong.
As for Rick, it is close to "reeku", although there is a glottal stop
(pause) before the "ku" to denote the doubled consonant.
Bless you for being interested in the original pronunciations!
-- -scott \\ sdiberar@student.umass.edu (feeling a little smarter than he is...)- Gundam Mailing List Archives are available at http://gundam.aeug.org/
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