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sinnesspiel) wrote2019-04-15 11:16 pm
sinnesspiel) wrote2019-04-15 11:16 pm
Translating Military Rankings - General Fiction
Given Japanese military classifications both pre-WW2 ("Imperial") and Post ("JSDF") are just a little different from US and NATO ones, and that this can especially become a bit of a translator's quagmire in fictional series written in Japan, I'm throwing up a little General Information post. This is actually in response to a friend who asked about something in the series Hypnosis Mic, which I am completely canonblind on. In researching the linguistic side of it, it highlighted certain trends in real Japanese military talk and fiction.
After World War II, the defeated Japan was forced to demilitarize to the extent that they have only a Japanese Self Defense Force (JSDF). Their military before this point officially served the Emperor, who was before that point not merely symbolic; the military pre-WWII defeat is thus called the Imperial Army. The ranking systems for both Japanese forces have differences from American and European ones, though the differences from the Imperial Army and modern US/Nato forces are decidedly more distinct; the biggest difference is the lack of distinction between branches in rankings. This isn't to say there are no words associated with specific branches. For example, in the Gundam series, Tianem Teitoku is explicitly naval (though there are other units that are specifically army--Sunrise has given license holders specific instructions regarding rank translation by faction, though I've seen some debate over how accurate these are). Different fictional works adapt different blends, but short of series set in a modern day Japan with no altered history, you'll probably not see JSDF terms for reasons we'll get into in a bit.
At the risk of making an inflammatory statement, the allowance of even a self defense force in Japan is considered by some historians and analysts to be due to American interests in another democratic and allied nation having certain bases and capacities during the Cold War rather than an allowing anything for Japan's own sake. This isn't something I'm saying as a political statement and is linguistically relevant in later on.
Thus charges that present day Japan technically doesn't have an army, navy, or air force are technically correct (some would say this is the best kind of correct). Instead they have ground, sea, and air self defense forces. Changes between the old terms and new are aggressively de-militarized, to the point where more cynical folk may find it funny. Tanks or Sensha 戦車, literally War Vehicles, were renamed 特車 or Special Vehicles. (If you're pretty comfortable in Japanese, here's a good source on these changes).
To touch on the specific question that spurred this post, Gunsou (軍曹) or Sergeant is "Military Noncomissioned Unit." This term applied to various classes within this rank, with the class specification often dropped in shorthand. In the real and modern JSDF, 'gun' ("Military") has been dropped from all lexicon. Gunsou (Various ranks of Sergeants in the Army/Navy/Air Force, various classes of Petty Officers in the Navy), and such ranked solders are now called by their class number and and the aforementioned sou (曹) (noncomissioned unit/person/cadet/whathaveyou). So a first class soldier of this rank would now be called ittou(x)sou. X would now be replaced with hei, kuu or kai, for ground, air, and sea respectively. If you're translating it very literally, it would be 'Rank 1 land/air/see Person.'
I'd said before that the cynical may have saw some humor in this. More practical folk like, say, those actually having to deal with these matters in a realistic linguistic context, may see it as utterly inane and impractical. For this reason, if you pick up a Japanese/English dictionary, you'll see a lot of old and new terms translated the same way as common, more militarized English language use. At the risk of making an inflammatory statement which I again promise will be relevant later here: in terms of what people, properties, and units do, in terms of who to talk to about getting something done, they're functionally the same thing. This is why you can see things like "A Navy First Class Gunsou" and whip out your J-E dictionary and get Sergeant, which is not applicable to any English language naval ranks.
While the Imperial Army did have potential differentiating terms between the Navy and Army branches, due to the linguistic structure the comparisons across units were easier to grasp than English. Consider how unintuitive the comparison between a Sergeant and Petty Officer is in English vs. Land-sou and Sea-sou. Thus, Gunsou to refer to the general rank irregardless of branch wasn't uncommon, and it isn't uncommon when discussing something in a way that's easy for a commoner to understand, or in fiction where the branches aren't as distinct or politicized. I'm not going to make a full word by word table, but know that while there are some branch specific terms, some terms such as Taii, etc. are interchangeable in Japanese but not in English (Taii would be a Captain in the Military, a Lieutenant in the Navy). (As an aside the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy, while linguistically lumped together at times, had one of the most intense inter-military rivalries ever heard of so don't take the linguistic harmony to suppose it was necessarily a cohesive unit on all fronts).
In official modern documentation and national public action, Japan and all branches of its self defense force uphold the new terms. Even to American influencing agents who had an interest in some degree of re-militarization of Japan, changes to these words to repress potential Imperialistic uprisings were vital. However, this constant linguistic reminder of their defeat, this pedantic political correctness highlighting their lack of certain capacities, is naturally demoralizing within ranks. Thus in the real Japanese military, old Imperial terms slip out often in purely internal, particularly non-written communications. This also relates to the sheer practicality matter above.
For these reasons, much Japanese military fiction (at least of the anime/game variety) that isn't explicitly set in a modern day post WWII setting with few if any alterations on WW2 history will fall back on imperial terms. To recap, those reasons are (1) the politically correct JSDF terms aren't something any nation with a full standing army would use and wouldn't make sense outside of the very precise real world context they were enacted in, and (2) like all political correctness, they're useless, honestly kind of a pain in the ass and don't exactly rouse morale. Even in fairly realistic real world modern settings, you may get mostly old terms as either a reflection of internal military reference, a pride point, or to keep a certain sense of power and pride in the setting (though I'd imagine if your real world modern fiction has any political aspect at all you'll also hear the new terms in certain contexts as necessary).
From here it's just my personal opinion but how to translate it depends a lot on the work. If you read anything I translate, you know my preferred method is "translate it as straight as you can and throw a thirty page culture note at the audience." This isn't necessarily practical for the roleplaying context I was asked for. Though if I thought I could see a trend such as Sunrise using many neutral terms (such as Tai'i) but having a few consistent branch specific terms in Gundam (as they do with Zeon seeming to be naval term based) then I'd try to default to English naval terms.
Given in most modern fiction that doesn't use the JSDF terms you can fall back on the safety of "this is an AU where they use certain general terms for all branches because that's how Japan does it" you've got a lot of free range to either go with the source or go with a more military-knowledgeable translation (on the argument that it's accurate English with absolutely no Japanese context lost by going branch-specific). My only contention with the latter would be if you had to guess which branch they wanted you to favor in your picks, and for that reason I'd go with a translation note that you're doing such, but even my picky assed self generally don't have issues with which direction a translator goes as long as they don't get it objectively wrong. And given official English language materials for a major hit series like FMA translated by a supposed big name translator has just outright and objectively gotten it wrong (there's no setting in which a chuu'i would be a captain), well, you've got a lot of room to forgive yourself.
After World War II, the defeated Japan was forced to demilitarize to the extent that they have only a Japanese Self Defense Force (JSDF). Their military before this point officially served the Emperor, who was before that point not merely symbolic; the military pre-WWII defeat is thus called the Imperial Army. The ranking systems for both Japanese forces have differences from American and European ones, though the differences from the Imperial Army and modern US/Nato forces are decidedly more distinct; the biggest difference is the lack of distinction between branches in rankings. This isn't to say there are no words associated with specific branches. For example, in the Gundam series, Tianem Teitoku is explicitly naval (though there are other units that are specifically army--Sunrise has given license holders specific instructions regarding rank translation by faction, though I've seen some debate over how accurate these are). Different fictional works adapt different blends, but short of series set in a modern day Japan with no altered history, you'll probably not see JSDF terms for reasons we'll get into in a bit.
At the risk of making an inflammatory statement, the allowance of even a self defense force in Japan is considered by some historians and analysts to be due to American interests in another democratic and allied nation having certain bases and capacities during the Cold War rather than an allowing anything for Japan's own sake. This isn't something I'm saying as a political statement and is linguistically relevant in later on.
Thus charges that present day Japan technically doesn't have an army, navy, or air force are technically correct (some would say this is the best kind of correct). Instead they have ground, sea, and air self defense forces. Changes between the old terms and new are aggressively de-militarized, to the point where more cynical folk may find it funny. Tanks or Sensha 戦車, literally War Vehicles, were renamed 特車 or Special Vehicles. (If you're pretty comfortable in Japanese, here's a good source on these changes).
To touch on the specific question that spurred this post, Gunsou (軍曹) or Sergeant is "Military Noncomissioned Unit." This term applied to various classes within this rank, with the class specification often dropped in shorthand. In the real and modern JSDF, 'gun' ("Military") has been dropped from all lexicon. Gunsou (Various ranks of Sergeants in the Army/Navy/Air Force, various classes of Petty Officers in the Navy), and such ranked solders are now called by their class number and and the aforementioned sou (曹) (noncomissioned unit/person/cadet/whathaveyou). So a first class soldier of this rank would now be called ittou(x)sou. X would now be replaced with hei, kuu or kai, for ground, air, and sea respectively. If you're translating it very literally, it would be 'Rank 1 land/air/see Person.'
I'd said before that the cynical may have saw some humor in this. More practical folk like, say, those actually having to deal with these matters in a realistic linguistic context, may see it as utterly inane and impractical. For this reason, if you pick up a Japanese/English dictionary, you'll see a lot of old and new terms translated the same way as common, more militarized English language use. At the risk of making an inflammatory statement which I again promise will be relevant later here: in terms of what people, properties, and units do, in terms of who to talk to about getting something done, they're functionally the same thing. This is why you can see things like "A Navy First Class Gunsou" and whip out your J-E dictionary and get Sergeant, which is not applicable to any English language naval ranks.
While the Imperial Army did have potential differentiating terms between the Navy and Army branches, due to the linguistic structure the comparisons across units were easier to grasp than English. Consider how unintuitive the comparison between a Sergeant and Petty Officer is in English vs. Land-sou and Sea-sou. Thus, Gunsou to refer to the general rank irregardless of branch wasn't uncommon, and it isn't uncommon when discussing something in a way that's easy for a commoner to understand, or in fiction where the branches aren't as distinct or politicized. I'm not going to make a full word by word table, but know that while there are some branch specific terms, some terms such as Taii, etc. are interchangeable in Japanese but not in English (Taii would be a Captain in the Military, a Lieutenant in the Navy). (As an aside the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy, while linguistically lumped together at times, had one of the most intense inter-military rivalries ever heard of so don't take the linguistic harmony to suppose it was necessarily a cohesive unit on all fronts).
In official modern documentation and national public action, Japan and all branches of its self defense force uphold the new terms. Even to American influencing agents who had an interest in some degree of re-militarization of Japan, changes to these words to repress potential Imperialistic uprisings were vital. However, this constant linguistic reminder of their defeat, this pedantic political correctness highlighting their lack of certain capacities, is naturally demoralizing within ranks. Thus in the real Japanese military, old Imperial terms slip out often in purely internal, particularly non-written communications. This also relates to the sheer practicality matter above.
For these reasons, much Japanese military fiction (at least of the anime/game variety) that isn't explicitly set in a modern day post WWII setting with few if any alterations on WW2 history will fall back on imperial terms. To recap, those reasons are (1) the politically correct JSDF terms aren't something any nation with a full standing army would use and wouldn't make sense outside of the very precise real world context they were enacted in, and (2) like all political correctness, they're useless, honestly kind of a pain in the ass and don't exactly rouse morale. Even in fairly realistic real world modern settings, you may get mostly old terms as either a reflection of internal military reference, a pride point, or to keep a certain sense of power and pride in the setting (though I'd imagine if your real world modern fiction has any political aspect at all you'll also hear the new terms in certain contexts as necessary).
From here it's just my personal opinion but how to translate it depends a lot on the work. If you read anything I translate, you know my preferred method is "translate it as straight as you can and throw a thirty page culture note at the audience." This isn't necessarily practical for the roleplaying context I was asked for. Though if I thought I could see a trend such as Sunrise using many neutral terms (such as Tai'i) but having a few consistent branch specific terms in Gundam (as they do with Zeon seeming to be naval term based) then I'd try to default to English naval terms.
Given in most modern fiction that doesn't use the JSDF terms you can fall back on the safety of "this is an AU where they use certain general terms for all branches because that's how Japan does it" you've got a lot of free range to either go with the source or go with a more military-knowledgeable translation (on the argument that it's accurate English with absolutely no Japanese context lost by going branch-specific). My only contention with the latter would be if you had to guess which branch they wanted you to favor in your picks, and for that reason I'd go with a translation note that you're doing such, but even my picky assed self generally don't have issues with which direction a translator goes as long as they don't get it objectively wrong. And given official English language materials for a major hit series like FMA translated by a supposed big name translator has just outright and objectively gotten it wrong (there's no setting in which a chuu'i would be a captain), well, you've got a lot of room to forgive yourself.