Hi! Silly question im sure, but thought i’d ask.
I’m a worldbuilder and I decided on making a japanese-speaking nation which has fictional japanese place names written in kanji. My knowledge of japanese is rudimentary but I get around.
What i’m wondering is, how would a japanese native speaker, or japanese speaker in general, potentially, react to arbitrary phonetic readings of kanji/compounds for fictional place names – with the actual kanji combinations having (actual) meaning?
For example, say I name a place “eternal dream shrine” or somethingto that effect and go with 常夢想宮. Now, the kanji by themselves, by this I mean the singular kanji and compounds, can mean that and they have a proper pronounciation for the meaning I want. What if, on the other hand, I decide on reading the kanji individually with a (potential) mix of kun and on readings and end up on for example ジョウボウソウみや – “Joubousoumiya”. Now, doing it this way it can either end up incomprehensible or mean something else entirely – but the underlying kanji still well, *can* mean the thing.
What i’m wondering is, how would you, as japanese speaker, or a native, think about this? Would you think “that’s not how those kanji/compound are read” or “that’s just how its called, I guess (fictional place name)” or figure out what I was trying to do think of it as cringe or interesting or something else entirely?
Just thinking if I should just scrap this line of thought, and think of making fictional place names which have the correct words for the kanji and on/kun readings when actually appropriate (such as say, 夢想町 which can both be むそうまち or むそうチョウ etc but still mean the same thing?
Thanks! This turned out longer than I thought.
2 comments
I don’t know how far you learned Japanese, but kanji is merely how it’s written. The meaning it has is more a supplement, not the core part. As such, if I can’t read it – I don’t even know where ボウ came from, for that matter – it doesn’t really work.
What makes it readable and what doesn’t? Tough question. You probably need tons of immersion, because the skill in play is something like *intuitive path of least resistance.* In other words, based on fuck ton of experience, we’d find something similar, and apply the same logic/approach. Like how you can try and read or spell an unknown word and get it close enough. For example, in your ideas I would never read みや because the kanji in front of it are probably onyomi, and based how 東照宮 is read, I expect this 宮 to be read みや. Unlike, say, 宇都宮 or 三宮.
Japanese place names are … complex, let’s put it that way.
Usually they’ll be in kun-yomi. 横浜 Yokohama
But of course there’s regional dialects, historical simplifications … The older the place, the more likely the kanji is read in a historic way that’s no longer standard. 前原 Maebaru
Then of course, there’s places where the etymology is Japanese, but it’s written in phonetic kanji. 奈良 Nara
Constructed names in Onyomi to sound more official 京都 Kyoto
Onyomi names because of Buddhist origin 吉祥寺 Kichijouji
Particles that are spoken but not written 山手 Yamanote
Kanji in Onyomi because there is no kunyomi, leading to mixed reading 福岡 Fukuoka
Obscure kanji that only exist in the place name …
And then there’s these: https://soranews24.com/2016/12/01/w-t-f-japan-top-5-most-insane-kanji-place-names-in-japan【weird-top-five】/amp/
The short answer would be … make up names that you think sound cool, but have a native speaker (not some weeb with N5, a native speaker) double check them and fix anything that’s too odd.
If you don’t, you get a setting full of google translate accidents like the Legend of the Five Rings RPG.
“Otosan Uchi” … *cringe* and no I’m not making this up. https://l5r.fandom.com/wiki/Otosan_Uchi