Talk:Miko class series

Radiant Miko Japanese name and translation goals

So Light Miko is a direct translation of ひかりのみこ, but it doesn't capture the intention of the class's name.

光, read as ひかり in the class, can be understood as beams, brilliance, gleam, glow glorious, illumination, rays of light, beams of light, emanating light, influential, hope, power, happiness. Radiant Miko therefore is a direct transliteration, but Radiant as a word uses a completely different set of kana and kanji -- see the various "acceptable" translations on Jisho.org (https://jisho.org/search/Radiant).

With other class Japanese name translations, I've made changes to align with the English names if a direct translation aligned with the English class name and didn't conflict with the class having different names for different class levels in some way (Eoleo's Pirate class series is the main example of the conflict, where かいぞく is best translated as Pirate, but he has パイレーツ, literally the Japanese pronunciation of the English work Pirate, as a later class level, so we couldn't call the first level Pirate without misguiding readers to think that the two classes had identical names just different writings). With Mystic Miko, for example,しんぴのみこ could have been called Mystical Miko, or Mysterious Miko, or Mystery Miko, or Mystic Miko, but we had previously translated it as Mystical Miko despite the official translation having a perfectly acceptable translation, hence the change.

But Radiant Miko creates this issue where the name "Light Miko" does not describe, in English, what the class's Japanese name means via various readings, while Radiant Miko more closely analogues to that name, but isn't a direct translation. This is the classic challenge of translating poetry and music and literature, where a direct translation can feel forced.

So my question posed to the editors: Do we keep the Japanese translation literal and just choose a single word such as "Light" to represent ひかり? Or do we transliterate the meaning and tell readers that ひかりのみこ is supposed to convey to Japanese readers a meaning closely aligned with that of Radiant Miko? Or do we choose a different word than Light such as "Illuminated"? (A word that is an acceptable translation of 光 but Hikari can mean Illumination but Illuminated manuscripts or Illuminated signs usually use different readings or even different kanji!). Do we say "Splendorous Miko" or Luminous Miko or something that use the same kanji but different readings?

What is our GOAL with translating? Meaning and intent of feel or absolute basic meaning?

With the NSO releases of GS1 & GS2, I'll be diving back into the Japanese versions of the games to collect data for re-translating the script for intent and meaning to fix up some of our translation issues when we're trying to portray what the Japanese words mean versus what the NOA team called the terms. The ability to rewind and capture images will help with that task immensely. But to do that, we need to decide whether translation should be precise or meaningful. As is, most of the wiki's Japanese translations and transliterations are a mix of the two. This issue with Radiant Miko thus emanates or radiates (pun intended) out through the wiki and should be decided on as a project of the wiki, so we can continue to improve it despite its relative state of completion! 14:05, 17 January 2024 (CST) Marandahir (talk) 14:05, 17 January 2024 (CST)

I'd go with the meaning and intent of feel route, since the wiki always has the room on its pages to have Trivia sections with seminars on what each term might equate to in its most literal surface-level form and how the "language behind the language" ultimately adjusts what native readers get out of that wordage. The meaning-based route is also valuable because it offers the clearest opportunity for us to point out what the NoA localization missed or failed to understand about the Japanese script in a given case. Erik the Appreciator (talk) 02:21, 18 January 2024 (CST)