Whatever, in the game I played it was Aerith.
Whatever, in the game I played it was Aerith.
Creativity is certainly about not being constrained by rules or accepting the restrictions that society places on us. Of course the more people break the rules, the more likely they are to be perceived as ‘mentally ill’.
“Fix the cause, not the symptom.” – Steve Maguire
Aeris sounds nicer, Aerith looks nicer. Aeris was a mistranslation, so I'll stick with Aerith.
This post brought to you by the power of boobs. Dear lord them boobs. Amen
Here's an argument I whipped up fairly recently:
----------------------------------------------
Alright, you jokers, strap yourselves in:
When whoever-the-smurf was picking a name, he took the written English word Earth and split it up into four pieces: E-A-R-TH. He then assigned a katakana syllable to each segment separately by rough phonetic similarity: エ-ア-リ-ス, or E-a-ri-su. (The reason for the 'I' being introduced into the name was an arbitrary choice between the symbols for ra, re, ri, ro, and ru; a simple "-R" sound was not an option. And of course, ス is what one uses when transliterating TH.) This exercise produced a multi-syllable name which sounded quite different from its inspiration, and intentionally so. Keep in mind, the creator could have easily used the typical phonetic transcription approach (e.g. Cloud => Kuraudo) to arrive at アース (Aasu) as the best approximation for Earth.
So the real significance of the "Earth" origin is that a transliteration trick was performed on the dissected written word in order to select syllables; it was never the goal to precisely replicate the sound of the English word. The best translation, then, will not undo this unique syllable-play; rather, it will capture the pronunciation of the name - which at its core is a Japanese construction - into an accurate Romanized representation. The part no one disputes, エアリ (e-ah-ri), becomes "Aeri". Why? Because that's the English spelling which best replicates how エアリ sounds to Western ears - distinctly NOT a relapse into the original pronunciation of EAR in Earth. Same goes for the final sound ス (su), which is represented best to Western ears by an S.
Aeris.
Someone (I don't care who) later lost their trout over the fact that both S and TH can be valid mappings for ス. They assumed that the English pronunciation of "Earth" was intended to be faithfully preserved, at least in part, and thus concluded that Aeris was a mistake. After all, "Japanese has no TH sound, so 'su' is obviously the creator's best attempt at a phonetic transcription." ...Right?
But Japanese also has no lone "-R" sound, so by the same logic, リ (ri) is just the creator's best attempt at reproducing the R in Earth, with '-i' appearing as an unfortunate side-effect. Even エア (e-ah) could be playing a role in mimicking the emphasized "-R" sound while introducing more undesirable artifacts.
The point is this: The line of reasoning which leads to choosing 'TH' also leads, in the name of phonetic faithfulness, to destroying the syllable-play essential to the original name's construction, until eventually we are forced to translate the name as "Earth" (or optimistically, "Aerth"). Indeed, not only does Aerith have less basis than Aeris, but it even has less basis than the word Earth itself if we are to adopt a consistent approach.
Aeris. Seal it and ship it. Even with the late-night typos and grammar slips, FF7 was translated very well considering the volume of text therein. Do you really think they'd blow the main heroine's name so easily? They also translated ス to TH when it was appropriate to do so (e.g. Sephiroth, from an actual phonetic transcription), and they obviously had the capacity to make a decision between the two. Unlike the English-to-Japanese transcribed names (e.g. Kuraudo) which suffered from language incompatibilities, エアリス was entirely borne from them. The translation "Aeris" reflects this properly.
It seems these days Square Enix listens to what fans have to say. We have just a couple of years to convince their Western localization team to unsmurf Aeris's name for good.
TL;DR
>エアリス (Earisu) is a *thoroughly* bastardized transliteration of Earth
>Translating it back with -TH chips away at this key characteristic of the name, so
>"Aeris" is actually the most authentic translation.
>Now that we are educated on the matter, it's time to mosey.
You basically ignore how communication psychology works.Originally Posted by silentenigma
Successful communication is only then existant when the communication partner understands the intention and follows exactly what was intended.
Square wrote her as Earisu with the intention of the name being Aerith. It is is Aerith. The manual says it. The game says it. The files of several official pictures for the pc version says it. Therefore what follows what Square wanted is the most authentic translation. I will point it out one more time.
"Hi, can you tell me what time it is?"
"Yes."
"..."
____
"Yes." <- LEGITIMATE but WRONG ANSWER (So how is it right? In the context of legitimacy)
It does not follow the intention of my question, therefore is a disturbance of communication.
Square had the intention of her being Aerith all the time. And that's it. You cannot even say "he chose ri because of this and that", because Aerith is an allusion of Earth, not directly meant to be Earth. And no, "ri" is not by the same logic the best attempt to reproduce an "r" because in most cases for that they take "ru". By your logic, when Sephiroth is right, they would have to automatically and without a doubt write him as "Sefirotto" because Americans do not use the authentic Hebrew pronounciation either, but no, he was written as "Sefirosu" because the intention made him the English pronounced Sephiroth. And I have pointed it out more than once - Japanese authors also do not just think with a mindset that uses Japanese only. Tetsuya Nomura had to name his Organization XIII with the Western names in mind for his little name game to work.
It is really interesting how someone wants to argue that when someone decides to give a name to someone that person's intention is worth nothing when it is the essence of things.
How right is Aeris?
Level of being Correct:
Correct in the Context of Legitimate Translation
As correct as: Aelis, Airith, Aelith, et cetera
When can it be intentionally correct?
When the owners change their intention and say "it is correct (as well)", as the context of intention changes.
How right is Aerith?
Level of being Correct:
Correct in the Context of Legitimate Translation and Intention of the Namegivers
What people do not want to accept, is that Aerith always existed and was not a retcon as no true state was rewritten but just a mistake corrected. I can only mention it again: When I started FFVII in the 90s my brother, who never did that much with FF as I did, already said "call her Aerith, that's how she is called, Aeris was a mistranslation", so this whole mistranslation thing was already that popular on the internet back then and it was important to be pointed out. And that's obvious. If I want to say something and someone does not understand what I said I also say "sorry, that was meant differently".
And once more to clarify things:
Correct: Tidus (Tida who was meant and written as Tidus all the time), Cloud (Kuraudo who was meant and written as Cloud all the time), Sephiroth (Sefirosu who was meant and written as Sephiroth all the time), et cetera ...
Purposely changed: Tina -> Terra, Butz -> Bartz, Balflear -> Balthier, Eclair -> Claire, Cidney -> Cindy, Attacker -> Command, Blaster -> Ravager, Enhancer -> Synergist, Jammer -> Saboteur, Healer -> Medic, Defender -> Sentinel, et cetera ...
Mistranslated: Aerith, Reina, Misunderstanding Rebirth as Reverse, et cetera ...
If legitimacy was everything necessary and the context of intention was meaningless then communication would be totally misleading.
Last edited by Sephiroth; 03-02-2016 at 05:13 PM.
This is precisely what, according to my post, "Aerith" fails to accomplish.
Not my manual, that's for sure...
Edit: Oh, you're talking about the Japanese manual. Honestly, they're lucky Barret didn't come out as Ballett in that thing. Guess I'll go read the rest of the thread...
(Edited) The game's innards? It's written a half dozen different ways in there...like the debug room. I'm pretty sure the creative heads were not the ones doing most of the coding.
This kind of stuff was also all over the place back in the day, perhaps sparking the early Internet buzz you mentioned. But I'll bet that, for every person who concluded at that time that it was mistranslated, there was another who stood ground with the official release...because at the end of the day, Square was silent on the matter.
The guy didn't have a TH, so he used SU. He didn't have an -R, so he used R* and picked his favorite variant. So if we consider mapping SU back to TH, then we need to consider mapping RI to R.
Unless I misunderstand you, my post states why Sephiroth and Cloud are totally different cases - or different "intentions" - from Earisu: They were derived directly from real English words (or English transliterations of Hebrew). Earisu, on the other hand, was primarily a Japanese construction loosely inspired by the letters that make up the word "Earth". There's a difference. And it was almost certainly not written with any final Romanization already in mind:
Maybe we should go with his early Romanization then, "Earith". Do we even know who came up with the name in the first place? (Nomura wasn't even the first one to draw concepts for Earisu.)
We don't buy your assertion because not only is there a lack of satisfactory evidence for it, there is evidence for the contrary as well.
Where was the statement from Square on this matter in 1998? Because if they cared as much as you said, and if "Aeris" was a problem, then they could have ended it right there. Heck, they had several chances, demo releases and re-releases, to get it right. This all looks like a case of someone changing their mind. Or someone else deciding for himself later on that a mistake had been made.
I really don't think this whole thing is as cut-and-dry as you've made it out to be, and while I usually don't like responding to posts point by point, I hope this post shows why my camp has ongoing skepticism about the change.
Edit #3: I actually just finished reading the rest of this thread, and it is hilarious. I absolutely regret posting a serious response.
Last edited by silentenigma; 03-02-2016 at 09:58 PM.
Sorry, I was not aware you were one of the people ignoring author intention and other facts like the rest of the post showed. And you are contradicting yourself with your "convert back and forth" as the allusion to Earth is reflected the most appropriate with "su" as "th" and not "s", as a matter of fact it would hardly be recognizable as an allusion to Earth with this "s" and instead just be mistaken as the Latin word for Air, which people do all the time.
Intentionally provoking and non-sensical. Barett is written as Barett exactly as the head gear thing is written and it has nothing to do with "them being lucky".
That was no conclusion out of nothing, it came from the mere facts of Square themselves, included stuff like manuals and other official things that you are so eager to ignore.
Not at all as it is a mere fact that most of the time for a single r "ru" is used as the "u" is often ignored, other than the "i" in "ri". By your logic "s" is always the most authentic one, totally ignoring the rest that is needed for understanding the message of the one who has put thought into it.
Which is wrong many creators think of Western versions exactly when they make up the stuff. Heck, even nowadays you can see the names of areas and whatever else exists in games in Japanese and then in English, like wirth FFXIII for example which firsts writes "Arukakiruti" and then not "Archacylte" but "Archylte", which already shows they have certain names in mind. And your "Cloud is not the same as Aerith" thing is perfect for my first quote: It is not. Indeed. But it reflects what was intended. If you really only want to go for writing alone, then okay, you are wrong at calling him Sephiroth with an English "th" because then it is either Sephiroth with a hard "t" or Sephiros.
But that is not how things work, He was intended as Sephiroth. With English pronounciation. Just as Cait Sith was intended as the (Irish?) creature of Legend pronounced as "Cat Shee" and not like some guy from Star Wars. And you cannot just say "but those are existing words so we know xy" because that is incomplete thinking. Have you ever thought that someone adds something to that? Like "I am gonna use that name but in my version it is supposed to have that meaning and that pronounciation". Like I had a girl which hated it when people called her "Ee-lay-na" and said "NO, my name is pronounced Eh-leh-na". She has the right to decide that. And Square has the right to take "Earth", make a new word out of it and decides how it is pronounced and written. We can take the Origins of the word to explain something to people. But that is not in all cases, when it comes to different words, the entirety needed for the explanation.
First of all, her early Romanization is Aerith, as shown in the original manual and everything. Second, it should be really easy to understand that not every idea that someone initially has it set in stone. That means, even if they have an idea, if they later decide to take a different approach that is also okay (everything else would mean that it is not allowed to have the idea that Aerith dies because it was not meant first and that Aerith and Sephiroth had to be lovers or siblings, et cetera). That is how things are created. And as their mindset was and is Aerith, it is Aerith.
I am not talking about Nomura-san as the namegiver but to show you how important the context (in this case the intention) of the one is, who in every individual case intends aspect x. Hell, if I would go fór Tetsuya Nomura-san for this example as a namegiver it would not work because he wrote "Sefiros" on his artwork, which is exactly the point. Sephiroth's name is not Sefiros either. A person intended him to have a certain name. And exactly he gave him that certain name. Same goes for Aerith. And, as I have used Nomura-san, in his case, the Organisation XIII.
There is no lack of it, you are just the kind of person that stands on a road with a car driving towards him and say "there is no car". I know people like you for over 10 years now. It has nothing to do with "lack of satisfactory evidence", it is just not wanting to admit something at any cost. But it will not change the fact that the car will hit you if you do not accept it or at least move away. The manuals, the code, the Kaitai Shinsho, the fact that they corrected it later, everything proves the intention. If anything, you lack the evidence of the opposite which is no wonder, because you cannot have evidence against the intention of a creator. People already bring out stuff to show and correct and you still say "no, they didn't" or treat it as worthless. This results in you not being satisfied with anything and just saying "oh yes, she was never intended as Aerith even though everything shows she was and then they changed it to Aerith for no reason even though she was never intended and still is not intended as Aerith". I am sorry but for someone who wants "satisfactory evidence" your posts show a lot of the signs I see from everyone else I have every argued on the internet. And that is not "justified doubt because of facts".
Why would Square go out and have a hold a speech about every mistranslation that ever exists? They had their official stuff that showed it, the Kaitai Shinsho was released with the explanation of Aerith, they released Kingdom Hearts after a while. They provided us with enough information.
There is a significant difference between your "camp" being biased and ignoring everything just out of personal preference and justified doubt, especially when it is a mere fact that even if it would have been a retcon and not a correction (which it is) they have all the right in the world to decide what is true about their property. A post like you wrote it will not change that. I have seen enough of those posts from many people concerning many different topics and just saying "I like Aeris more" would save way more time instead of covering your eyes and ears and say "n, no, that's npt how it is, I cannot see the tree that is actually out there". Mistranslations exist. That is just how it is. They happen all the time and everywhere. People just do not like to say "I like the (in the important context) wrong one" they want to say "but I like this so it has to be the right one in the important context instead of just being right when it comes to "legitimacy"". And I will point it out once more: She will only be Aeris when Square allows her to be Aeris and that is then because it is their mindset and not ours. Same goes for "Super Ninja Battle Star" or every other name.
If you so freely say what you think by calling it hilarous, writing posts which partially are supposed to provoke and ignore everything, then I have no problem doing the same as well: Square owns the characters Aerith and the brand Final Fantasy. They say she is Aerith. She is Aerith.
Last edited by Sephiroth; 03-04-2016 at 06:13 PM.
(I might be dumb, but I didn't notice the allusion even when the games used "Aerith." "Earith" does the trick, though.)
Okay, this actually gets at the crux of our arguments, so I'll try to clear it up once, right here, the best I can.
Your stance, as I have gathered:
The definitive name is and always was Aerith, a Latin construction alluding to the English word "earth", which was then translated to Japanese as エアリス.
If you are right, then it obviously follows that the author's intention for the name is Aerith, and エアリス should be be translated back to English as such.
My stance:
The definitive name is and always was エアリス, a Japanese construction loosely inspired by the English word "earth." No particular Romanization was intended.
If I am right, then the author's intention for the name would be the Japanese name itself, and as such, the most authentic translation would result in a sound that is as similar to エアリス as possible.
You listed some evidence for why you believe "Aerith" was always intended by the author, and here is a summary of my responses:
The original Japanese manual is unreliable, as it contains other relevant errors, and it may not have even been taken seriously by the game's own devs (see next point below).The manuals,
Up until the final release of the game, various devs who touched the game's code and text used the names Aerith, Earith, and at some point, Aeris. If anything, the lack of conformity suggests that there was no standard Romanization conceived early on. I would speculate, however, that most were aware of the "earth allusion" since TH was used most often at that point. Also, these variants popped up in the debug room during the translation process, after the original game's manual was made, which implies that the manual was not treated as a definitive statement on the matter. (They don't call it 'Engrish' for nothin'!)the code,
Is there anything in this besides the interview that mentions that エアリス was made as an "allusion to earth"? Because that is just as compatible with my position as it is with yours. It does not imply that the Romanization came first or simultaneously.the Kaitai Shinsho,
Square isn't a hivemind. Someone changed the localization later, but we don't know that it was at the behest of the same person who originally came up with the name. Since we don't know who the Author was, we don't know if he even cares about the name's localization or has even been involved in FF since the change. What about all of the times the name didn't change, in the international version and re-releases? In FF Tactics? Did the Author somehow fall asleep just in time for the translation in 1997 and not wake up for five years?the fact that they corrected it later
I'm not even sure that the current lead devs are more than vaguely aware of the localization change. I might be ill-informed, but as far as I know this could easily be an adjacent localization department acting independently.
Yes, some Japanese writers come up with Romanizations simultaneously. But we don't even know who came up with エアリス, so how are we to know he was that type of person? For example, if it was Sakaguchi who did it, I would bet on the contrary, as he hardly cared at all about Western localization at that time.many creators think of Western versions exactly when they make up the stuff.
_____________________________________
So here's what I think may have happened: Author makes Japanese name. (The hypothesis on how this was done is given in my original post.) Devs and coders Romanize it when necessary as they build FF7. They know the name was inspired by "earth", so they typically use Earith or Aerith. Some even might think the name will end up transliterating to Aerith, but there isn't a standard, and localization really isn't a concern at that point. Aerith ends up on the manual of the Japanese game.
Time for localization. It's messy early on, because it's basically being done in-house. We get the debug room with Earith and Aerith still the most common variants. We see things like Cefiros, Ketcy, and Ballet. But ultimately, they clean everything up and get Sephiroth right...along with Cait Sith, Barret, and a million other things. They obviously care; they're not lackadaisical. Similar deal with エアリス. "Aerith" would be the most obvious choice in the world - It's on the Japanese manual, it's in the code, it was inspired by the word "earth", and they know that you have to be careful with S/TH - but in the end they decide on Aeris. Could be a judgement call, could be the result of consulting the Author about the differences in English pronunciation. But it is decided, after consideration, that while the "earth" thing is neat, at the end of the day the name - a totally invented word - should sound like it does in its original form. English speakers would probably one day figure out its inspiration anyway.
Fast forward, years later, and roles within the company have changed. Perhaps different people now determine what ends up in the localized versions of new games. These people really care about the "earth" thing, to the point that they come to the conclusion that "Aeris" was a mistake. They begin putting "Aerith" on all new products.
It's not that far-fetched, and it's not nearly disproved by the evidence presented in your post.
On the other hand, what I find hard to believe is that the localization team would decide against Aerith, which would have been by far the easiest choice, without having a legitimate reason for doing so.
____________________________________
The rest of this post are minor responses:
Don't they only drop the "-u" sound when the syllable comes at the end of the word? Also, the author wouldn't necessarily follow convention if it meant a better-sounding name; it was still a made-up word, after all.
You may be indicating here that you're aware of the Nomura document that I was referring to, since you mention the validity of changing one's mind mid-development (which I absolutely agree with). And I think we agree that he was probably not the one to come up with the name, but in case anyone hasn't seen it:First of all, her early Romanization is Aerith, as shown in the original manual and everything. Second, it should be really easy to understand that not every idea that someone initially has it set in stone. That means, even if they have an idea, if they later decide to take a different approach that is also okay (everything else would mean that it is not allowed to have the idea that Aerith dies because it was not meant first and that Aerith and Sephiroth had to be lovers or siblings, et cetera). That is how things are created. And as their mindset was and is Aerith, it is Aerith.
early-ffvii-aerith.jpg
The question becomes: If there had been an established intended Romanization originally, then why was one of the top creative heads not even aware of it at the time?
Alternatively, if it had been initially intended as "Earith", but then the Author changed his mind to "Aerith", then why did the Japanese not adjust along with it?
Han shot first.it is a mere fact that even if it would have been a retcon and not a correction (which it is) they have all the right in the world to decide what is true about their property.
are+you.png
Last edited by silentenigma; 03-05-2016 at 05:36 AM.
Oops. Seems I evened up the vote again. I am all for Aeris being erased and Aerith taking over.
I'm from America, played the North American PS1 version of the game, so I say Aeris and choose that.
BUT, I've been on enough FF message boards in the last 13 years to notice that I catch myself calling her Aerith nowadays as a habit because so many gamers go by that name of hers world-wide. So as much as I hate to admit, I catch myself calling her by the name opposite I believe more times than not.
I'm a water dude, jet skis, water pools
Surfin' the (waaaave), I'm hurtin' the (waaaave)...
"Oh Yes" ~ Juelz Santana
It don't matter what Aeris' name is, she's dead.
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