Monday, April 1, 2024

'Isekai,' 'tokusatsu' among words added to Oxford English Dictionary - FOX 13 News Utah - Dictionary

"Isekai" and "tokusatsu" are among the 23 Japanese words added to the Oxford English Dictionary as part of its March 2024 update. While their inclusion may have a special effect, the words are not entirely lost in a brand new world.

According to the OED website, there are at least 574 Japanese loan-words that have been added to date. These new words were added thanks to a collaboration between Oxford University and the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

Some of the new words added to the dictionary are the following:

Isekai (noun): A Japanese genre of science or fantasy fiction in which a main character is transported to a different, strange, or unfamiliar world. Often used as a modifier to describe media that falls into the genre. Notable examples include anime series such as "KonoSuba: God's Blessing on this Wonderful World!" and "Aura Battler Dunbine."

The genre is believed to have first emerged in Japan with the 1975 Haruka Takachiho novel "The Warrior from the Other World (Isekai no Yushi)," but the word's usage to describe the genre developed during the early 2000's.

A promotional still released by Studio DEEN to promote the third season of the KonoSuba anime series. The four main characters walk along a grassy knoll. Aqua leads the group, pointing in the distance as she looks back at Megumin, who hangs on her arm, staff in hand. They are followed by Darkness, who is reaching out to catch up, followed by Kazuma, who has a bag slung on his shoulder.
A promotional still released by Studio DEEN to promote the upcoming third season of the 'KonoSuba' anime series.

Tokusatsu (noun) - A genre of Japanese film or television, usually live-action, that is characterized by the use of practical special effects. Such media often features things like giant monsters, transforming robots, and costumed superheroes.

Notable examples would include series such as "Ultraman," "Godzilla," and "Super Sentai," which was adapted for the U.S. as "Power Rangers."

power rangers.jpg
FILE - "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" defend against a monster, scene from tv series on Nov. 29, 1993.

Mangaka (noun) - A writer or illustrator of manga, or Japanese comics.

Notable examples of mangaka include figures such as Akira Toriyama (creator of "DragonBall"), Kazuki Takahashi (creator of "Yu-Gi-Oh!"), and Kentaro Miura (creator of "Berserk").

Graphic novels are displayed for sale at a bookstore in New York City on Sunday, October 8, 2023.
Graphic novels are displayed for sale at a bookstore in New York City on Sunday, October 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

Other words added to the list include a number of food items, such as takoyaki, onigiri, and katsu. You can find the full list of added words here.

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Sunday, March 31, 2024

'Isekai' Added to the Oxford Dictionary: Isekai Meaning, Pronunciation, Origin Explained - The Mary Sue - Dictionary

promotion image for Konosuba: God's Blessing on this wonderful world!

While many of us might think “dictionary” and imagine some stuffy old book stashed away in the corner of a school library, the English dictionary is a living document. The English language is always changing, of course, and that means the dictionary is constantly getting updated.

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And so, in the final week of March 2024, the Oxford English Dictionary, which (in Harvard’s words) is “widely accepted as the most complete record of the English language ever assembled,” added a whole bunch of new words. You might be delighted to know that among these words are such hits as “nepo baby,” “doomscroll,” “quiet quitting,” and (my personal favorite) “underboob.”

But Oxford also added 23 new words that are borrowed from Japanese—words that both mean something very specific and that we have come to use all the time in English. Most of them relate to Japanese food: “donburi,” “onigiri,” “katsu,” “takoyaki,” and “okonomiyaki,” aside from being a shortlist of my favorite meals, all came into the Oxford English Dictionary with this new update.

But for anime and manga fans, there are two new entries which are of particular interest. One is “mangaka”—a word whose meaning that I, as someone who covers manga all the time, am honestly tired of wondering if I have to explain as an awkward aside in an article. So thank you, Oxford.

The other, amazingly, is “isekai”—a very popular, but also very specific, subgenre of manga/anime.

What is “isekai,” again?

Spirited Away, Chihiro with Haku
(Studio Ghibli)

The Oxford English Dictionary now defines isekai (pronounced EE-seh-kai) as “a Japanese genre of science or fantasy fiction featuring a protagonist who is transported to or reincarnated in a different, strange, or unfamiliar world. Also: an anime, manga, video game, etc., in this genre.” Which, you know, is exactly what an isekai is.

It’s hard to pinpoint “the first isekai,” because isekai has been a method of storytelling around the world for probably longer than history could say. For Western examples, consider The Chronicles of Narnia or Alice in Wonderland. Hell, you can argue Dune is an isekai. But the turning point of isekai for Japanese film- and TV-makers was arguably Hayao Miyazaki’s highly influential film Spirited Away. (If this is your first time consciously realizing Spirited Away is indeed an isekai, you’re not alone.)

By the mid-point of the 2010s, which saw the climax in the popularity of series like Sword Art Online, isekai had become one of the biggest sub-genre in all of anime. Interestingly, the Oxford English Dictionary pins the beginning of the popular use of “isekai” in the English language to 2018.

But by that point, isekai had already become so big that some have become annoyed with the genre overall, because they feel the anime market is oversaturated with isekai. There are a lot. And when a genre becomes ridiculously popular, it becomes very easy to point out all the bad ones.

Why the Oxford English Dictionary adding “isekai” matters

The Oxford English Dictionary’s inclusion of “isekai” comes at an interesting time. For one, two of the best currently-running examples of the genre—That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime and KonoSuba: God’s Blessing On This Wonderful World!—are coming back for their third seasons as part of the spring 2024 anime lineup.

Even more importantly, anime’s influence on and inclusion in mainstream culture in English-speaking countries around the world is getting harder and harder to dismiss as niche. Polygon recently conducted a survey that showed more members of Gen Z watch anime than follow the NFL. There is now a Tamashii Nations store—a company that makes anime figurines—in Times Square. Last year, Monkey D. Luffy joined Dragon Ball‘s Goku and Pokémon‘s Pikachu to become the third anime character with a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. (For the sake of argument, let’s just say Pikachu is anime for the moment.)

All of this can be summed up quite nicely by the fact that the Suicide Squad—complete with the prime character real estate of The Joker and Harley Quinn—is getting an isekai anime later this year. Seriously, it’s called Suicide Squad Isekai.

So if “underboob” (a word not unrelated to anime) can be added to the Oxford English Dictionary, surely words like “isekai” and “mangaka” are not just worthy, but even overdue.

(Image credit: Drive)

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

Kirsten Carey

Kirsten (she/her) is a contributing writer at the Mary Sue specializing in anime and gaming. In the last decade, she's also written for Channel Frederator (and its offshoots), Screen Rant, and more. In the other half of her professional life, she's also a musician, which includes leading a very weird rock band named Throwaway. When not talking about One Piece or The Legend of Zelda, she's talking about her cats, Momo and Jimbei.

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Udine: In less-touristy Italy, little is lost in translation - Times Colonist - Translation

‘Prendi la donna,” I practised saying. “Basta, non farmi del male.”

Or, in English: Take the woman, just don’t hurt me.

You must admit, these smartphone translation apps are wonderful. Even in destinations far off the main tourist track, ones where English is relatively uncommon, they let you overcome linguistic barriers that might otherwise turn every interaction into a desperate game of Charades.

Udine is such a place. A city with a population half that of Greater Victoria, it nestles close to Austria and Slovenia in the northeastern corner of Italy — a back eddy, not the mainstream. Wander the cobbled streets of its centuries-old centre and what you mostly hear is Italian — or maybe the regional dialect, Friulian — not the Tower of Babel babble of those tourist towns where it feels as though the visitors outnumber the locals.

And that, dear reader, is part of the attraction.

Why did my wife and I choose to go to Udine? Because this is where her grandparents were raised before emigrating to Canada a century ago. Because my wife relished the idea of running a half-marathon along the same streets they once trod, with me cheering her on with roadside cries of “You look tired” and “Can’t you go faster? I’m getting bored.”

That was fun, but the great benefit was the discovery of a place that retains its everyday authenticity. Udine hits that elusive sweet spot: it feels like the historic, culturally rich, romantic Italy chased by so many visitors, yet it has yet to be overwhelmed by the visitors themselves.

This highlights an awkward dilemma for Italians and foreigners alike. The country has become a victim of its own popularity, swamped in places by a tsunami of visitors flooding the streets of Rome, swarming the cliffside villages of the Cinque Terre and threatening to further submerge poor Venice, which this year will restrict the size of tour groups and impose a 5€ (roughly $7.50 Cdn) entry fee on day-trippers.

Italy is at the point where one of the biggest complaints among tourists is how many damn tourists there are, all wrestling for the same slice of La Dolce Vita. If that sounds hypocritical (like the bumper stickers say: you’re not stuck in traffic, you are traffic) it also reflects how crowded it can get. (BTW, people get really fussy when you quite justifiably start throwing elbows in the cattle-car-cramped confines of the Vatican.)

Enter Udine, or at least places like it.

It’s not that Udine, the historic heart of the Friuli region, is untouristed. It’s just that it’s not overtouristed.

The city’s small, easily walkable core has the requisite attributes. Narrow streets. An ancient cathedral. To-die-for gelato. Cheap wine.

Expensive boutiques. Trattorias with Lady and the Tramp red-and-white checked tablecloths. Buildings that date back to long before Europeans set foot in Canada.

Stylish, glamorous women stride the sidewalk as though it were a Milanese catwalk. The men, equally well turned out, all resemble a young Robert De Niro (really, it was like looking in a mirror).

What foreign visitors you do see are more likely to speak German than anything else. On a sunny day, they flock to the busy Piazza Matteotti as servers hustle between the tables of the outdoor restaurants ringing the square.

Nearby is the head-swimmingly historic (to a Canadian) Piazza della Libertà, where a 15th-century Venetian-Gothic town hall and the stately Loggia di San Giovanni stare at each other across the square. Elbowing each other for space are an imposing clock tower, a 16th-century fountain, a lion-topped column and statues dedicated to Justice, Peace, Hercules and Cacus, and, I think, Sir John. A Macdonald (just joking, Victoria!)

At the corner of the square are stairs leading up Udine’s only hill to the city’s 16th century castle, home to four fabulous little museums and art galleries. The four might not be as expansive as, say, Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, but neither are they as expensive, and you don’t have to time your arrival like a moon landing or crane your neck over two busloads of fellow gawkers to get a glimpse of The Birth of Venus. Standard admission to all four castle attractions is 8€ (as opposed to 25€ at the Uffizi) and we pretty much strolled in and had the joint to ourselves while contemplating paintings by Tiepolo, Caravaggio and Carpaccio, the latter of whom I confused with a sandwich meat.

But here’s the deal: As enriching as the historic/artsy city centre might be, for some of us the real rewards are found beyond the cobblestones. If you’re more fascinated by the mundane than the museums, venture beyond Udine’s core.

One of the benefits of staying in a B&B in an outlying residential area, as opposed to a hotel in the old city, is how quickly it exposes you to everyday Italy, to the way ordinary people live ordinary lives. The farther you get from downtown, the more Udine looks less like Ancient Rome and more like Modern Gordon Head — less glamour, more people who resemble your neighbours.

It was intriguing to see how Italian practices compared to ours — what they did better, or worse, or just differently. Frankly, when I travel I get a bigger kick out of perusing the local grocery store than the national gallery. (BTW, at our nearest Udine supermarket, prices were — with the exception of a 6€ bottle of Prosecco — similar to Vancouver Island’s. The cashiers were mostly middle-aged men, sitting, not standing, behind the counter. Thankfully, they didn’t yell at us when we forgot the part where you’re supposed to weigh, bag and print off a label for your produce before bringing it to the checkout.)

Just watching the flow of traffic — an unchoreographed but effective dance, with cars, buses, cyclists, pedestrians and scooters somehow weaving in and out of each other’s way with no one descending into us-vs-them transportation tribalism and feeling the need to fire off an indignant letter to the Times Colonist — is mesmerizing. Udine has very few bike lanes but a gazillion cyclists, most of whom appear to have forgotten their helmets and spandex at home. People of all ages ride in street clothes, including elderly women in elegant dresses. Buses to surrounding villages have seatbelts, which absolutely everyone ignores.

Some things there felt ridiculously familiar, like the music blasting out from a birthday party in a nearby home: Sweet City Woman, a 50-year-old song by a Canadian band, The Stampeders, shattering the Italian night, which amused those of us who weren’t trying to sleep before running a half-marathon.

Other experiences were just a bit different. Along with the half-marathon was a run-with-your-dog race where people and pooches stampeded down an 800-metre course through blocked-off streets. And never mind the 13th-century cathedral, it’s Udine’s 21st-century flushable porta-potties that will have Vancouver Island runners green with envy. Later in our trip, at a charity run for a children’s hospital near Milan, it was a surprise to discover the runner behind us smoking at the start line.

One Udine tradition it would be nice to emulate: the way people carve out social time in the late afternoon, gathering with friends or family in a local cafe for an after-work, after-school aperitivo — a bit of food and drink consumed a few hours before supper, which is typically a late-evening meal. The aperitivo is collegial, brings neighbours together, builds community — and reflects poorly on Canadians’ more solitary, rushed, drive-thru existence.

That too-busy-for-life rush, which some of us wave as proudly as a battle flag, is frowned upon in Udine. There, food is consumed while sitting at a table, as God intended. Espresso is sipped while standing in a cafe, but never while walking down the street. Swigging coffee out of a to-go cup on the sidewalk or cramming a croissant down your cakehole at a crosswalk is a fast way to brand yourself as a foreigner/barbarian.

Better to sit down at one of those corner cafes and engage the locals in translation-app-assisted conversation. This is the best part about language barriers: they’re a sign that you are talking to ordinary people who, unjaded by tourists, might be as curious about your life as you are about theirs. One evening, having encountered half a dozen old guys drinking 2€ glasses of wine outside a neighbourhood bar, we engaged them in a long, wide-ranging conversation — the cost of food, the lure of home, the sorry state of Udine’s soccer team, which can usually be found wallowing in the lower reaches of Italy’s top league, Serie A — despite none of us speaking the other’s language. (Long-ago high school French helped bridge the gap with one man who had lived in Quebec City, but he mostly talked about 1980s NFL football: “Earl Campbell, il était magnifique!”)

We had a lot of encounters like that: villagers eager to find family connections to my wife, a 16-year-old fretting about his driving lessons, a woman urging us to try frico, a potato, onion and Montasio cheese dish of which people in Friuli are proud. (You can buy T-shirts that read Make Frico, Not War.)

We liked Udine a lot. It was relaxed, real, cheaper than the better-known destinations and not really that far from anywhere. Pretty Cividale del Friuli, founded by Julius Caesar and on the UNESCO world heritage list, is only half a half-hour, 3€ train ride away. Trieste, where international flights land and a worthwhile destination in itself, is an hour away by rail.

The thing is, Italy is full of places like Udine, ones you might have never considered, and where the language barrier feels more like a gateway.

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Anime and manga strongarm their way into the Oxford dictionary as 'Isekai' and 'Mangaka' become official English words - Gamesradar - Dictionary

English-speaking manga and anime enjoyers just received a powerful dose of validation, as two words inextricably linked to the scene have just made their way into the language's main historical dictionary.

Earlier this week, Oxford University Press announced that 23 new Japanese words had been added to the 500 or so loanwords that already feature in the Oxford English Dictionary. Many of those were food-related - such as Katsu, Hibachi, Santoku, or Tonkotsu - and a few others pertained to specific crafts. Kintsugi, for instance, is the well-known Japanese art of fusing broken objects back together with gold, while Kirigami is not too distant from the world-famous art of Origami.

Also included in the list of craft words, however, is Mangaka. Defined simply as "a writer or illustrator of manga," it's interesting to see the increased presence that mangaka themselves have had in mainstream culture in recent years. Sadly, in many of those cases, it's been the artists' deaths that have marked that change, with the passing of Berserk mangaka Kentaro Miura in 2021, and the recent death of Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama.

Elsewhere, the list of words includes Tokukatsu - "a genre of Japanese film or television entertainment characterized by the use of practical special effects." Of those, classic Godzilla films or shows like Power Rangers are likely best known. But one other word in particular caught my eye: Isekai. Defined here as "a Japanese genre of science or fantasy fiction featuring a protagonist who is transported to or reincarnated in a different, strange, or unfamiliar world," the concept is a pivotal framework for untold numbers of anime, manga, novels, and more, which have taken over the fantasy space in the last decade. 

Isekai is not an inherently Japanese concept - Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe all use very similar ideas - but the format is especially ubiquitous within anime and manga, helping the word gain a greater footing in popular culture within the West. Of course, the popularity of Japanese art is not a new phenomenon outside of Japan - the Oxford English Dictionary has been aware of the word 'anime' since 1985 - but as that popularity grows, it's interesting to see specific aspects of the scene gain a foothold in increasingly varied places.

Get caught up with the best manga of 2023.

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NIT-C Assistant Professor wins PEN America’s literary grant for translation - The Hindu - Translation

Vrinda Varma, Assistant Professor, Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology, Calicut (NIT-C), has been chosen for a grant instituted by PEN America for literary translation.

Ms. Varma translated Alingam, a Malayalam novel by S. Girish Kumar based on the life of dramatist Ochira Velukutti, into English. Mr. Kumar is Assistant Professor of Malayalam at Sree Vivekananda College, Kunnamkulam, Thrissur. The award carrying a purse of $4,000 will be given away at an event to be held in New York on April 29.

A description on PEN America’s website says “Alingam is a fictionalised biography that provides a rare perspective on gender, class, caste, and religious conflicts and reveals fascinating historical insights into the evolving folkloric and dramatic traditions of 1930s Malayalam theatre... Ms. Varma has translated this richly textured historical fiction with careful attention to subtle details, bringing Velukkutty’s distinct voice and attitude to glorious life in the English.” Ochira Velukkutty (1905–1954) was a unique dramatist in the early days of Malayalam theatre, who played the female heroine role in the play Karuna over 7,000 times in a seven-year period.

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Circle to Search can soon translate text on the screen - SamMobile - Samsung news - Translation

One UI 6.1 made its debut with the Galaxy S24 series, and starting today, Samsung is rolling it out to many high-end smartphones and tablets. One of the highlights of the software customization is Ciricle to Search, which allows you to research anything on the display by drawing a circle around the object. While the feature is still new, Google is already upgrading it with a very useful functionality. The company has announced that in the coming weeks, Circle to Search will be able to translate content on the screen.

To access this feature, you’ll have to long-press on the home button or the navigation bar to bring up Circle to Search and tap the translate icon. After that, Circle to Search will automatically detect the language of the content on the display and translate it to your preferred language. You don’t even have to draw a circle around it. For example, if you open a PDF file of a hotel’s menu that’s in Japanese, you can summon Circle to Search, tap the translate icon, and it will convert the language of the menu to English.

Google Circle To Search's Translate Feature

Currently, if you want to translate content that’s on the display (say a PDF file of a menu), you have to take a screenshot, head to Google Translate, and select that image. The app will then detect the language in the image and convert it to your preferred language. As you can see, this process requires you to not only capture a screenshot but also switch applications (exit from the PDF viewer and then go to Google Translate). With Circle to Search offering the translation feature, you won’t have to do any of that.

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Saturday, March 30, 2024

Fact Check: Armchair Linguists Claim 'Nickelodeon' Means 'I Don't Care About God.' Here's What We Found - Yahoo Canada Finance - Translation

TikTok user @AnimeBibleVerse, X user @AnimeBibleVerse, Google Inc., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
TikTok user @AnimeBibleVerse, X user @AnimeBibleVerse, Google Inc., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Claim:

The word "Nickelodeon" means "I don't care about God" in Latin.

Rating:

Rating: False
Rating: False

In March 2024, a meme went viral on X (formerly Twitter), claiming that "Nickelodeon" is the Latin translation of the English phrase, "I don't care about God." The image was also shared on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. "Use Google translate and see for yourself," one Instagram post with the image read.

The rumor spread in the aftermath of the premiere of "Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV," a "docu-series that uncovers the toxic culture behind some of the most iconic children's shows of the late 1990s and early 2000s." As The Guardian review of the documentary informed, the "'in plain sight'" moments in the series are clips from Nickelodeon shows that "repeatedly featured underage performers in bikinis or leotards, or having jets of water or thin stripes of goo squirted into their faces."

(X user @AnimeBibleVerse)

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We found that the same rumor was spread in 2023 via TikTok and Instagram posts linking it to Illuminati conspiracy theories.

Snopes found that "Nickelodeon" is not, in fact, a genuine Latin translation of the phrase "I don't care about God." We have rated the claim as "False."

To begin with, whoever created the viral image broke up the name "Nickelodeon" into arbitrary segments divided by spaces, so that Google Translate would interpret it as a phrase instead of a single word. When we performed our own Google Translate search of "nic kelo deo" on March 29, 2024, the English translation in fact read "I don't care about God." However, when we clicked on the English translation of the phrase, Google Translate indicated that in Latin it would be rather "Non curat de Deo."

(Google Translate Screenshots)

We tried looking up different variations of the alleged Latin sentence via Google Translate website. For instance, when we entered "nic kelo deo n" (including an extra "n" at the end), the translation into English remained unchanged as "nic kelo deo n." Furthermore, translating the phrase "I don't care about God" from English into Latin showed the result "Non curat de Deo."

(Google Translate)

What's more, when we searched for "nic" and "kelo," Google Translate the results read "nothing" and "kelo." However, Online Latin Dictionary did not show any results when we searched for "nic" or "kelo."

(https://ift.tt/QzWgDhG)

We have reached out to Google for a comment on the matter and will update the article if/when we receive a response.

Etymonline, an online etymology dictionary, explained that the word "Nickelodeon" derived from a combination of the word "nickel," a five-cent coin, and the Greek word "odeion," meaning a music hall.

1888 as the name of a theater in Boston; by 1909 as "a motion picture theater," from nickel "five-cent coin" (the cost to view one) + -odeon, as in Melodeon (1840) "music hall," ultimately from Greek oideion "building for musical performances" (see odeon). Meaning "nickel jukebox" is first attested 1938.

In December 2022, we debunked a similar false rumor, claiming that "Balenciaga" was Latin for "Baal is king."

Sources:

Nickelodeon | Etymology of Nickelodeon by Etymonline. https://ift.tt/d13kTE4. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

ONLINE LATIN DICTIONARY. https://ift.tt/wVuMR0U. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Palma, Bethania. "No, 'Baal Enci Aga' Doesn't Mean 'Baal Is King' in Latin." Snopes, 7 Dec. 2022, https://ift.tt/nzplUxy.

Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV. Business Insider, Maxine Productions, Sony Pictures Television, 2024.

Seale, Jack. "Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV Review – How on Earth Was This Stuff Ever Broadcast?" The Guardian, 25 Mar. 2024. The Guardian, https://ift.tt/H75N6vR.

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