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Conference thebay::joyoflex

Title:The Joy of Lex
Notice:A Notes File even your grammar could love
Moderator:THEBAY::SYSTEM
Created:Fri Feb 28 1986
Last Modified:Mon Jun 02 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1192
Total number of notes:42769

1132.0. "Mangling Japanese" by REGENT::BROOMHEAD (Don't panic -- yet.) Fri Jan 27 1995 14:02

    I will be singing in "The Mikado" in a few months.  There are two
    places in the entire operetta in which we sing in `Japanese'.  I
    would be curious to learn if the passages actually mean anything,
    or anything like they are implied to mean.
    
    Sung loudly in an attempt to drown out Katisha's revelation about
    Nanki Poo:
    
    O ni!  Bikkuri shakkuri to!
    
    Sung as the Mikado makes his entrance:
    
    Miya sama, miya sama,
    On n'mma no may� ni
    Pira Pira suru no wa
    Nan gia na
    Toko tonyar� tonyar� na!
    
    Anything?
    
    							Ann B.
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name		DateLines
1132.1JRDV04::DIAMONDsegmentation fault (california dumped)Sun Jan 29 1995 15:4823
    > O ni!  Bikkuri shakkuri to!
    
    Maybe "what a surprise!"
    
    >Miya sama, miya sama,
    
    Maybe sort of like "ev'ybody, ev'ybody," parodying an accent.
    
    >On n'mma no may� ni
    >Pira Pira suru no wa
    >Nan gia na
    >Toko tonyar� tonyar� na!
    
    There are both some Japanese words and some nonsense in there.
    I can't even guess what three of the "words" might be because
    some nonsense character (usually an ISO Latin-1 accented vowel)
    plus the subsequent character (anything, good or bad) display
    as a square box.
    
    If you as in conference JIT081::NIHONGO, a Japanese person
    might be able to help.
    
    -- Norman Diamond
1132.2PASTIS::MONAHANhumanity is a trojan horseSun Jan 29 1995 23:342
    	The 3 letters you cannot read are all "e" with an acute accent,
    followed by " " (space).
1132.3GreatREGENT::BROOMHEADDon't panic -- yet.Mon Jan 30 1995 09:2812
    Norman,
    
    Thanks so far.  It looks like Gilbert asked a Japanese speaker for
    some exclamation that would rhyme with "Mikado", and got back --
    no, not an incredulous "You're kidding, right?" -- the "What a
    surprise!" comment.
    
    The next passage presumably started out pretty straight, and then
    was mangled by Gilbert for meter and rhyme.  (Hence the "ev'rybody"
    instead of "everybody".)
    
    							Ann B.
1132.4JRDV04::DIAMONDsegmentation fault (california dumped)Mon Jan 30 1995 17:1620
    Unfortunately .2 doesn't help me decode .0.  In fact my explanation
    in .1 didn't cover this case.  If an accented character is followed
    by space and/or CR-LF etc., then the space and/or CR-LF appears
    correctly but early, and the next character (plus the previous
    accented character) turn into a box.  Anyway, my level of correct
    Japanese skills, let alone slang which is probably mimicked in .0,
    probably won't decode it even when the accents are removed.
    
    Incidentally, old character-cell terminals with imbedded microprocessors
    used to delay 5 seconds before displaying each such box.  Couldn't
    even do a Control-O or Control-C during that time, in order to try
    to escape from displaying a page full of them.  Fortunately DECterm
    terminal emulators under DECwindows window system don't waste time.
    
    Also incidentally, to say "miya sama" instead of "mina sama" really
    does sound like a parody of an accent rather than a mangle for meter
    or rhyme.  If the next passage says "ev'rybody" in English, either
    it's a pun or coincidence.
    
    -- Norman Diamond