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Title mistranslation; It's not "ancient stone tablets"
Topic Started: Sep 23 2005, 09:51 AM (461 Views)
aleph_one
Embarked on a Quest
I just posted a painfully detailed explanation in the discussion page for Kodai no Sekiban's Wiki article. The translation of the title is probably something closer to "Stone Tablets of the Ancient World."
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Garrett
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Oracle
Interesting. Very very interesting.

Although I do wonder how our translator (Roto? Vel? I forget) missed a word out altogether. :huh: Hm.
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Euclid
Following Mudora's Footsteps
gee i never know the jap title is 古代の石盤 although i inserted the script for that thing :P

I agree with the BS the legend of zelda bit (yeah i think it was there before but people decided to cut off the loz lol, but they know it's there), but not the stone tablets bit. I can understand that Stone tablets of the Ancient world (or ancient civilisation) makes sense but... here's what i think.

I myself would translate it to "Stone Tablet(s) of the Ancient Past". Although 代 does indicate by itself "civilisation" or "world" or "generation" but when used with "古" it becomes more like "distant past", like really really really old long time ago, or "Ancient past" as i've kinda made it sound better, from that people decided to shrink it up to "Ancient Stone Tablet(s)", but that's my opinion, i could be wrong though since i'm not like really good at jap.

Note the (s) because you cannot determine if it's plural from these kanji chars (although in the game it's pretty obvious, but there's definately no indication of plural from the title)

But then, when you're translating things, as long as the meaning of the sentence is gotten, it doesn't matter which way you translate it or even how you word the sentence. <_<
Yayyyy
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Duke Serkol
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Where'd that Princess go?
Admin
For a moment there I thought this would be somebody complaining that we did not call it Ancient Stone Panel like most sites out there...

Anyway, about the matter at hand, is there really a difference?

Consider: if something is ancient, then it belongs by definition to the world of the past. Actually adding either of those two worlds, would serve little purpose and make this the longest title in a Zelda game (barring the Japanese title of LA, "The Island Where One Dreams")

And yes, of course we all know it's BS The Legend of Zelda, we just shorten it up for convenience.

And for the records, Roto and Vel did not translate that. Maybe Bumpus or a friend of his, but I wasn't around when the game was rediscovered.

Anyway, thanks for the info and welcome to the board Aleph_One!
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lameboyadvance
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Triforce of Lamedom...
Duke Serkol,Sep 23 2005
11:20 PM
Consider: if something is ancient, then it belongs by definition to the world of the past. Actually adding either of those two worlds, would serve little purpose and make this the longest title in a Zelda game (barring the Japanese title of LA, "The Island Where One Dreams")

That was my exact opinion (except for the JLA thing, didn't know that).

I would've said so, but seeing as my complete knowledge of the Zeldaverse boils down to "Gannon = bad", I waited until some other opinions were posted. ;)
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coinilius
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Pickled in time, like gherkins in a jar
It's not like the Japanese names and the western names of the officially released games always match up 100% either - A Link to the Past is quite different to Triforce of the Gods and Conductor's Baton of the Wind isn't exactly the Wind Waker either. Same goes with LA (Dreaming Island), the Oracles (Nut of the Mysterious Tree), FSA (FS+), LoZ (the Hyrule Fantasy) and the Minish Cap (the Mysterious Hat) with their Japanese counterparts :)
"You must be talking about Heaven... or the moon."

"It's a dog eat dog world... and there's not enough dog to go around."

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aleph_one
Embarked on a Quest
Well, good point about the titles not always matching up, but many of the titles have pretty much matched up. Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, The Adventure of Link, and Four Swords come to mind.

Also, while "takt" is the German word for a conductor's baton, it also translates from German to English as "clock" and "cycle". In Japanese it's pretty much only used to refer to "takt time" (??????). The first word, ???, is related to the German word takt, but the exact sense of the word as it is used in ?????? is still not clear. It is more than likely related in some way to musical timing or rhythm. The term was originally coined as part of the Toyota Production System (also known as the Just-In-Time System) pioneered by Shigeo Shingo and Taiichi Ohno.

And on the subject of the redundancy of "ancient past," consider that "stone tablets" is generally redundant, since the word "tablet" means "a flat slab of stone or clay, especially used for an inscription," meaning that if you use the word "tablet" you're probably referring to a stone tablet. :)

And no name really gets longer than "Seed of the Mysterious Tree: Chapter of the Earth" and "Seed of the Mysterious Tree: Chapter of Space-Time." ;)

[edit: how did you get Japanese characters to show up? Whenever I submit them, they just turn into question marks on this board.]
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Euclid
Following Mudora's Footsteps
I just copy and pasted the jap words and they show up.... maybe it's your browser...
Yayyyy
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Duke Serkol
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Where'd that Princess go?
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Wax tablets also did exist, I reckon.

Well, I'm certainly glad they didn't call it Metronome of the Wind over here :lol:
And yeah, the Oracles Japanese names are freaking crazy.
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Garrett
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Triforce of the Gods was changed because of Ninty's dereligionising policy, as we discovered earlier with the Hylian text. But goodness knows how they would have converted it had this barrier not been in place.
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coinilius
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Pickled in time, like gherkins in a jar
Four Sword Adventures' name in Japan was Four Sword Plus in Japan, so even it's name is not exactly the same in Japan as it is in the west :P

As for Takt of Winds, I was going to originally write Takt of Winds for TWW since it's the translation I'm more familiar with, but used 'Conductord Baton' because that's what the Wikipedia entry used as it's translation.

Also, with the Wind Waker - in Japan the Wind Waker item itself is, I beleived, refered to as the Takt of Winds in the game, so it seems that it's probably a fair bet that it is supposed to refer to 'conductors baton' rather than rhythm or metronome :P
"You must be talking about Heaven... or the moon."

"It's a dog eat dog world... and there's not enough dog to go around."

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aleph_one
Embarked on a Quest
coinilius,Sep 25 2005
07:25 AM
Also, with the Wind Waker - in Japan the Wind Waker item itself is, I beleived, refered to as the Takt of Winds in the game, so it seems that it's probably a fair bet that it is supposed to refer to 'conductors baton' rather than rhythm or metronome :P


haha okay okay, you win. :P
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