Re: Honorifics (e.g. Guan Yu vs Lord Guan)
Thank you very much, ZL181, DragonAtma, DZ, for sharing your thoughts on this topic. It’s a very interesting discussion and I can see a lot of pros and cons for either approach as the novel’s default presentation. And I can think of (and have seen referenced) pros and cons for either approach as the default presentation. Which makes for an interesting problem.
Makes me wonder if maybe we could encourage readers to review a sort of “customize your experience” page where it introduces some basic choices they can make and allows them to set some settings. There we could very specifically introduce some things like honorifics and let them set a setting at the get-go. But there would still be a default to settle on, of course. But we have time to consider.
For Now...
We have a clear answer and it is based simply on a technical consideration. We want the ability to display the novel with the honorifics intact and without, of course, so the baseline text should use the honorifics as appropriate to the novel translation. So for the basic text of the novel, use “Lord Guan,” “Xuande” where appropriate, etc. If Zhao Yun is presented as “Zhao Zilong” use “Zhao Zilong.” And if there are any points of confusion, let’s discuss them.
So why? By working with this as the baseline translation I can
programmatically convert the novel text to the preference defined by the user (or the default that is decided on). For that to work, the honorifics need to be in place (converting all honorifics to normal names poses little risk of false positives while converting instances of normal names to honorifics can easily introduce false positives). So whatever the outcome and handling we decide upon, we can work with the honorifics for the basic novel.
And there won’t be a need later to go through the whole novel manually and undo the honorifics or anything like that.
On the History
My understanding from the discussion is that these honorifics were not used to avoid offending emperors or the like? Just the deference extended to these individuals in the text as it evolved. I do know some other various names/styles have changed, however.
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Dong Zhou wrote: ↑Fri May 26, 2023 10:48 am
On the wider debate (just having a say) for when public, I get that it is a special honour and so Lord Guan and Xuande is more accurate, it reflects the tone of the novel and we can do stuff to highlight when the novel is making a special focus. My focus is more towards the accessibility, people get put off by the size, by being unused to this style of novel, by the 30000 names in the first chapter, what we can do to ease it without ruining the novel I'm in favour of. Lord Guan is easy enough (not too worried by might be confused for nobility) but the Xuande is an extra off-putter for those coming in off the games. I am happy with Zl181's "do you prefer the honorific" as an option with easier names as default
I wonder about the names… if maybe single-chapter folks might be desaturated in color as a subtle nod to indicate that they aren’t especially important. Or some other sort of thing that might help with introductions. I guess it’s just a fledgling thought.
Or even a special reader’s introduction to reading the novel for your first time. There are some things which could be discussed that may dramatically improve the experience of reading through the first paragraphs.
DragonAtma wrote: ↑Thu May 25, 2023 7:24 pm
As for sticking to the original names, that would mean missing both the changes over the past 600+ years and the differences between china and the west; that's why Woolsey's translations are better than the modern ones and the 'more faithful' retranslation mods.
Can you elaborate on this point? I figured even the “old” C.H. Brewitt-Taylor edition would be working with a relatively modern copy of the novel text? 1900 or whatever is a drop in the bucket compared to the age of
Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It’s rather more a consideration of what was omitted and what choices were made.
If there’s a question of what version to reference, we ought to generally focus on whatever is modern/current, at least outside the modern age of tinkering in deciding how to handle certain things like honorifics. For those matters, we get to make our own choices.
But for the versions of the novel as it evolved between dynasties and the like, our baseline ought to be the historic text as it eventually settled rather than working with the evolutions it went through dynasty-to-dynasty (although they can make for fascinating notes), as the world’s mentality now is to preserve a work like
Romance of the Three Kingdoms as opposed to continuing to evolve and change it to suit a ruler’s whims and who they have an affinity for. But I think that’s a given in the discussion.
