Drive-by poll

[solo]

Poll #22618

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 39

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Yes, this is a subtitling question...

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Dixing people, person; guy from Dixing
4 (10.3%)

Dixingren
35 (89.7%)

Its complicated and I'll tell you why
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[solo]

"Dixingren" is a half translation

Isn't it just a transcription?

the much more typical way of rendering a group name in English, by adding an English-sounding suffix like "-ian" or "-an," sounds natively incorrect when added to what we hear as an existing suffix sound, "-ing."

Absolutely, and that's why I decided not to use it from the start.

So neither "Dixingren" or "Dixingian" sounds very English, for what that's worth. :)

Agreed - I wasn't intending for it to sound English any more that I intend for Yashou, which I use, to sound English! :D

Thanks for the input, much appreciated!

[starandrea]

Oh, I should have added, I didn't mean to suggest that you personally should do it in any certain way! I love all the ways that people choose to combine languages! I'm just super intrigued by language use, and I'm afraid I went off on a bit of a ramble, there. As I am wont to do. :)

Isn't it just a transcription?

You're right, "half translation" was a terrible description! It's the pinyin of the Chinese characters, of course. Which we don't use in English for "Chinese" (or "Taiwanese," which is probably a better example of Chinese pinyin combined with English style people-suffixes, since the origin of "Chin" is so uncertain - the Qin people, possibly, from the Qin dynasty?) so although I do like the exotic sound of "Dixingren," its use doesn't have much of a precedent in the way English speakers typically adapt other group's names for themselves.

Absolutely, and that's why I decided not to use it from the start.

This was just me finally realizing why "Dixingian" sounds odd to my ear, even though does follow linguistic precedent in English. It's a much more common style for adapting the name of a people, but that "xing" syllable in Chinese does us in!

Agreed - I wasn't intending for it to sound English any more that I intend for Yashou, which I use, to sound English! :D

Totally fair! I'm all for loan words! ♥ We make "Dixing" and "Yashou" sound English by pronouncing them as an English speaker would, so I'm sure "Dixingren" can work the same way. Hopefully the use of "Dixingren" would be consistently mirrored by the use of "Haixingren" (instead of saying "Dixingren" and "people from Haixing"), so we don't introduce additional language bias into a society that already seems to have plenty. :)

Thanks for the interesting topic!

[solo]

Hopefully the use of "Dixingren" would be consistently mirrored by the use of "Haixingren" (instead of saying "Dixingren" and "people from Haixing"), so we don't introduce additional language bias into a society that already seems to have plenty. :)

Absolutely, where the show uses Haixingren! Sadly, though, it tends to refer mostly to 'humans'.

[starandrea]

Wow, I didn't even think about why that was awkward until you said that. Since originally it must have been filmed as "humans" and "demons," and then they inserted the "di-xing-ren" voiceover for demons without replacing humans. :(

[solo]

Yes, I assume that's what happened. Bloody censors. :(