Random Thread ～Owaranai Insomnia '25 ver.～

[rikkikow]

Today's duck adventure. They are headed for that corner again, I guess.

[Celedam]

I consider the first day of spring to be the day on which I can fully open my windows and start to air out my home.

Today has been that day.

[Celedam]

^ Aaaaand it snowed last night.

Pure Michigan.

[Celedam]

We were talking earlier about the iPhone SE. It's on clearance sale again, probably for the last time judging by exactly which models are being offered…

https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/clearance

It looks like they're taking back stock from authorized resellers and then clearing it out. I've never seen any other model of iPhone handled like this.

[esm]

It snowed all day today. Appropriate for the return of Game of Thrones, but crappy for me having to commute to & from work.

[rikkikow]

I haven't seen a duck in seven days.

[Celedam]

A question for anyone who knows more about Japanese than I do: should 女 be romanized as onna or on'na, and why?

I understand the apostrophe is inserted when the break between the syllabic n and the following vowel sound is ambiguous (e.g., にょ→nyo, んよ→n'yo), but is that really the case here? The U.S. Library of Congress always inserts an apostrophe, regardless of what follows the syllabic n, and Google Translate follows that standard. But most others including Wikipedia do not…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Japan-related_articles#General_guidelines

Thanks in advance.

[erilaz]

The guidelines that I found on the Library of Congress website say otherwise:

Transcribe the apostrophe ( ' ) between syllables when the first syllable ends with the letter n and the following syllable begins with the letter a, i, u, e, o, and y and when it is necessary to separate romanization.

Nagai Ken'ichi 長井憲一
Shin'etsu 信越
hon'yaku 翻訳
Man'yō 万葉
shin'ainaru 親愛なる
san'okuen 三億円
shin'uchi 真打

These LOC guidelines contain numerous examples of n (without apostrophe) followed by consonant, such as nihonshu 日本酒 and kanji 漢字.

So I'd say that although Google Translate's use of n' is consistent, it's unnecessary, and from what I see, it's not in accord with LOC standards.

[Celedam]

Ah, that's a different source than what I found. Maybe the LOC changed recently and Google Translate hasn't caught up.

[erilaz]

The most recent revision of the ALA-LC Romanization Table dates from March 2012. The section clarifying the use of the apostrophe was added at that time, but examples in unrevised sections of the document (e.g., kanji 漢字 and kanpō 漢方 as opposed to kan'yaku 漢薬) seem to indicate that their current practice was already established.

https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman_j ... r2012.html