starlady: A typewriter.  (tool of the trade)
Electra ([personal profile] starlady) wrote in [personal profile] snarp 2010-05-23 01:41 am (UTC)

I'm working through the Japanese, and it is nothing like the English in terms of whacked-out archaicisms. People occasionally bust out a でござる or a だんな, but it's not inconsistently applied (unlike the faux-Elizabethanisms in the English), and it doesn't impede understanding.

It's a real shame, because with the thee/you and sir/sirrah distinction Elizabethan English actually could model some of the distinctions Japanese makes pretty well. But it has to be done by a translator who understands it, and the translator here clearly doesn't. Also, I don't think the early 1700s in Japan really matches the Elizabethan era very well; Restoration English would be a lot better, but Restoration English has a comparative Dearth of Significant Differences.

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