Talk:Ba‘alat Starzone

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Name confusion

This page caught my eye since its been changed to something so radically different. I didn't see any discussion on either of the talk pages, so forgive me if this has already been discussed--i haven't really been active for q couple of years. Anyway, I'd like to know where the current name came from. The content of the page seems to indicate that its speculative based on a possible reference.

"Ba‘alat Starzone (Translation of Japanese, derived from LD/DVD dialogue)"

Thing is, I don't know what this means. The only Japanese I've seen is Kara, which cannot be translated, which romanizes to Baarato. I'm not saying the current name is wrong (it certainly seems correct) but I'd like to know where it came from.Canary 11:18, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

From the DVD features, where the katakana is given, along with the English character translation directly below. This is the same case for Srinagar. Iracundus 11:47, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

"バーラト星系" can actually be heard uttered by various characters in several episodes (notably episodes 24, 54 and 73), so it is indeed derived from in-series dialogue (the CentralAnime subs were really inconsistent in their translations though, and even skipped it when Yang mentioned it in episode 24). This name also matches with the Alliance practice of naming their systems after Phoenician deities (cf. Astarte) Glacierfairy 01:52, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm still confused. The page states that the name is derived from dialog, but the only possible romanization of the dialog is "baarato." The LD/DVD edition had those... illustrated subtitles, correct? I remember the LD version had them, not sure on whether or not the DVD version did. Anyway, if "Ba'alat" appears in English text in one of those plates, then that is what needs to be cited instead of "derived from dialog." And if "Ba'alat" doesn't appear in English characters anywhere in the OVAs, then it's the wrong name to use. I'd double-check this myself, but I only have the BD version.Canary 00:31, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

As far as I remember, "バーラト星系" (and any corresponding English subtitles) never appeared as subtitles on screen throughout the entire series, so in the absence of that I believe we can provide an appropriate translation for it, hence "Ba‘alat". This practice is actually present for a long time, the page for Raigarh Starzone being an example. Hope this clears up any confusion. Glacierfairy 02:27, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. I was confused because there was a time when we were ignoring obvious translations in favor of the Engrish approximations in the LD/DVD titles.Canary 02:57, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

The Japanese DVD release comes with an extra DVD of features including concept art and a mini encyclopaedia of the LOGH universe. That is where Ba‘alat comes from, and it is given in both katakana and English lettering in the entry. It is not an unofficial translation or derived from audio dialog. Iracundus 03:40, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

That makes more sense. Does the DVD have a title we can use?Canary 04:21, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

It is called エンサイクロペディア 銀河英雄伝説 Disc I データベース編 (Encyclopedia 銀河英雄伝説 Disc 1 Database) Iracundus 10:05, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll fix everything up. There are just three Ba'alat pages, right?Canary 10:50, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to disagree with the inclusion of "Baarato Starzone" as one of the variations as that is not a translation of the Japanese name but merely a transliteration and currently, we do not have the practice of providing kana-to-English transliterations under the name variations section. Glacierfairy 02:09, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

AlrightyCanary 06:14, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I didn't see this before, just wanted to clarify: The phrase Translation of Japanese may be slightly ambiguous (i guess it's debateable whether it's actually translation according to the technical definition), but the intent was to signify that it was our (or at least a third party's) translation of the Japanese. This is to differentiate the derivation from the Romanised subtitles/whatever provided by official sources.

The reason we do this is that, in these cases, there are no official English/Roman translations — the words only appear in Japanese dialogue or text. The alternative to creating our own translation for some of these names would be to use a literal transliteration (like baarato), which certainly seems non-ideal given that (a) it's almost certainly not the intended name, just the only way to represent it in Japanese, and (b) it's essentially nonsense to our English-speaking readers.

So any time you see Translation of Japanese under Name variations, that's what it means. If it came from an actual written source (subtitles, production notes, game text), it will specify that.

 ♥ kine @ 19:33, 10 September 2014 (UTC)