Re: "family name, personal name" in devel/people
Hi,
From: Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org>
Subject: Re: "family name, personal name" in devel/people
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 13:16:23 -0800
> If Oohara Yuuma said "In Japan a family name comes before a personal
> name in _Japanese_ _language_ context. I want to retain the same order
> in English context too.", it was not stretching the fact. I am all for
> respecting his defiance wish to the Japanese translation convention.
Is "Given Family" order related to English (or Western) language?
I don't know. However, I can say that the order is related to English
(or Western) people. I.e., Western people have names with "Given
Family" order. If they visit some other country, they don't change
their name. Vice versa.
> Please remember that it is a well established convention for Japanese
> name to be flipped in English or French context upon translation. That
> was my point. I guess if translated into Hungarian or Chinese, we
> should use surname first as the translation convention.
I know that convention. However, the convention is related to Japanese
people's custom, not western languages. It is proved by your example
of Hungarian or Chinese. Thus, it is Japanese people (not English
speakers) who have right to determine how to write Japanese people's
name in English.
> Boy, it is a hot topic. In my daily activities, defending my real first
> name against anglocized name is a real challenge in a hostile
> environment. I already gave up on my real fist name at the restaurant
> or bar. :-)
It is because the restaurant and the bar are localted at a specific
country. It is natural that the restaurant follows the convention
in the country. I cannot imagine a restaurant which is located at
all countries or "international restaurant". However, our project
is international.
---
Tomohiro KUBOTA <kubota@debian.org>
http://www.debian.or.jp/~kubota/
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