Wanwan or Wangwang

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Tora
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Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Tora »

I keep eyes on Gingapedia and have noticed they changed Wanwan to Wangwang. That makes me wonder what is the right way to spell the name of the Tibetan Mastiff?

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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Spirit Tree »

I prefer Wanwan. To me, that one sounds better than Wangwang.

But if Wanwan were to be called Wangwang, I’d laugh at his name. Sorry, but Wangwang just sounds really silly to me. :yama1:

Oh crap. I sure hope Tora or anyone else doesn’t get me for this. :FLY:
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Digsu »

I assume Wangwang is closer to the intended pronunciation; as discussed in the GDN topic a while back, his name seems to come from the Chinese reading of 王, which is "wang".

That said, though... I'd honestly prefer if we kept calling him Wanwan. We technically don't know if his name is literally meant to be pronounced exactly like the Chinese word or if it's just based on it and Wangwang is, frankly, a really unfortunate name when put in an English context.
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

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Tibet is in China anyway so it makes sense.
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Leomonade »

I'm seriously wondering what on earth made Yoshi decide on WanWan's name??? He has given dogs funny and weird names before but those were mainly English words. But WanWan? What could be the idea behind that name? XD
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Dragon »

Even if Wangwang is the real canon ... I kinda wanna keep it Wanwan. It's just so perfect. King and dog sounds in japanese. It works! Annddd like Digsu said, in English, it'll just make him even more of a joke ;; But yknow, he is a jerk so maybe it could still work if we do start calling him by that. .w.;
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Wolpard »

I'd personally stay to stick with Wanwan for now, as said above. Pun for bark and king... and while Wanwan doesnt sound great its definitely better sounding than Wangwang
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Raki »

I also prefer Wanwan!
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by fantachan »

I'd strongly recommend keeping it Wanwan for now. That's how the furigana in the manga spelt it, plus the "Wangwang" name is just a theory I've had that hasn't been confirmed by Yoshi yet.
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Arano »

fantachan wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 1:14 pm I'd strongly recommend keeping it Wanwan for now. That's how the furigana in the manga spelt it, plus the "Wangwang" name is just a theory I've had that hasn't been confirmed by Yoshi yet.
Furigana is law :tfw_sirius3:

I'm impressed no-one has rolled out the many fun english alternatives to Wangwang though. You're all very mature.
I however am not and would welcome Lord Dickdick / Dongdong / Penispenis 😂
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Digsu »

fantachan wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 1:14 pm I'd strongly recommend keeping it Wanwan for now. That's how the furigana in the manga spelt it, plus the "Wangwang" name is just a theory I've had that hasn't been confirmed by Yoshi yet.
ワン seems to be the official way of transcribing "wang" into katakana, though. Eg. Wang Yihan = ワン・イーハン, Wang Yuan = ワン・ユエン, Wayne Wang = ウェイン・ワン, and so on.

Like I said earlier, I strongly agree we should keep calling him Wanwan, but I just wanted to nitpick. :tfw_sirius3:

I may have gone through Wikipedia's list of notable people named "Wang" and looked up their Japanese pages just to make this point.
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Uru »

Phantom Riki wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2020 4:32 pm Tibet is in China anyway so it makes sense.
Tibet is actually different country in many ways: they have their own culture & they are trying to become independent from China.

I like Wanwan better. It also seems more correct as the Japanese reader reacted to it saiying it was stupid because of the King King/Woof Woof thing. And Wanwan was written as correct way of reading the word. If it was Wangwang it probably would have been written with katakana. (Katakana is used when writing foreign words, hiragana with Japenese words.)

I googled a bit and in Chinese wanwang is same as wanwan (bark bark). It also means awesome nickname or something. Maybe someone in Gingapedia thought that it would be cool if the characters were actually Chinese and went with Wangwang.
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Digsu »

Uru wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 2:41 pm And Wanwan was written as correct way of reading the word. If it was Wangwang it probably would have been written with katakana. (Katakana is used when writing foreign words, hiragana with Japenese words.)
The furigana for Wanwan's name is written in katakana.

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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Tora »

Arano wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 2:25 pm
fantachan wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 1:14 pm I'd strongly recommend keeping it Wanwan for now. That's how the furigana in the manga spelt it, plus the "Wangwang" name is just a theory I've had that hasn't been confirmed by Yoshi yet.
Furigana is law :tfw_sirius3:

I'm impressed no-one has rolled out the many fun english alternatives to Wangwang though. You're all very mature.
I however am not and would welcome Lord Dickdick / Dongdong / Penispenis 😂
OMG you made made laugh for that XD
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Arano »

Digsu wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 2:49 pm
Uru wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 2:41 pm And Wanwan was written as correct way of reading the word. If it was Wangwang it probably would have been written with katakana. (Katakana is used when writing foreign words, hiragana with Japenese words.)
The furigana for Wanwan's name is written in katakana.

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If it was Wang it would still need an extra character to get the G in there? Wangu? ワング
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Digsu »

Arano wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 3:19 pm
Digsu wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 2:49 pm
Uru wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 2:41 pm And Wanwan was written as correct way of reading the word. If it was Wangwang it probably would have been written with katakana. (Katakana is used when writing foreign words, hiragana with Japenese words.)
The furigana for Wanwan's name is written in katakana.

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If it was Wang it would still need an extra character to get the G in there? Wangu? ワング
I already addressed this in an earlier post.
Digsu wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 2:36 pm ワン seems to be the official way of transcribing "wang" into katakana, though. Eg. Wang Yihan = ワン・イーハン, Wang Yuan = ワン・ユエン, Wayne Wang = ウェイン・ワン, and so on.

Like I said earlier, I strongly agree we should keep calling him Wanwan, but I just wanted to nitpick. :tfw_sirius3:

I may have gone through Wikipedia's list of notable people named "Wang" and looked up their Japanese pages just to make this point.
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Arano »

Digsu wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 3:54 pm
Arano wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 3:19 pm
Digsu wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 2:49 pm

The furigana for Wanwan's name is written in katakana.

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If it was Wang it would still need an extra character to get the G in there? Wangu? ワング
I already addressed this in an earlier post.
Digsu wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 2:36 pm ワン seems to be the official way of transcribing "wang" into katakana, though. Eg. Wang Yihan = ・イーハン, Wang Yuan = ワン・ユエン, Wayne Wang = ウェイン・ and so on.

Like I said earlier, I strongly agree we should keep calling him Wanwan, but I just wanted to nitpick. :tfw_sirius3:

I may have gone through Wikipedia's list of notable people named "Wang" and looked up their Japanese pages just to make this point.
Yes I saw this, but there is no g sound in that spelling so is the g just assumed when it is singular like that? ワン as opposed to ワンワン
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Phantom Riki »

May I ask another question here?
What does Chibi means?..
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Leomonade »

Phantom Riki wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 5:53 pm May I ask another question here?
What does Chibi means?..
small/tiny/short

Can be used as an insult...
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Re: Wanwan or Wangwang

Post by Digsu »

Arano wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 5:43 pm Yes I saw this, but there is no g sound in that spelling so is the g just assumed when it is singular like that? ワン as opposed to ワンワン
I admit I'm really not that familiar with how the romanization of Chinese works, but given how both it and romanization of Japanese aren't really an exact science, I assume that trying to apply the English spelling doesn't work here. Basically, I'm guessing that the Japanese pronunciation of "wan" is closer to the original Chinese pronunciation of "wang" than "wangu" would be, contrary to what the English way of romanizing both languages would suggest.

Anyway, I tried looking more into how "wang" should be written in katakana and both this site and this blog post suggest it should actually be "ゥアン" - which still lacks the "g" at the end and again shows just how difficult transliterating words from one writing system to another can be. I'm pretty sure that bit of katakana would also be romanized as "wan" despite it being written differently from ワン, but the Roman alphabet just lacks the letters that could accurately represent the difference between "ゥアン" and "ワン". The former kind of has a softer "w" sound at the start than the latter, I guess?
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