I was translating the words Seance Party for my game that I am creating.
I noticed that both of these words have similar kanji and was wondering if I could combine both words to make a brand new word that is understandable.
降霊会 seance
宴会 party
降霊宴会 proposed new word?
Is this legal? Could this be a justifiable new word? if so, could I do this with other kanij combinations? To what extent? My inclination to this being possible is the final kanji in both of these words being similar. Also with my rudimentary understanding of kanji, it’s the only kanji in these words that I understand and seems to be obviously malleable.
3 comments
Potentially, yes … it’s not totally uncommon, especially when it comes to translating fantasy concepts in media.
For example, for the subtitles on the Harry Potter films (i assume in the books as well), they “made up” the word 吸魂鬼 for Dementor. This is based on the word 吸血鬼 for vampire (kanji for suck, blood, demon) , and they swapped the kanji for “soul” instead of “blood” so the word becomes “soul sucking demon.” Then for extra clarity, it was printed along with the furigana ディメンター
So it’s definitely a thing that happens. In your specific case, I feel like 降霊パーティー works better tho. Especially since an “enkai” carries a particular nuance, it refers to a specific vibe of party.
降霊 would refer to communication with the dead. The kanji 会 means “meet, or meeting”, hence 降霊会 would imply a seance.
宴会 is specifically a banquet or a dinner party: 宴 means “dinner or banquet”, and 会 again means “meeting”.
Do you intend for this seance to be a “dinner party seance”? If not, then 降霊会 contains the meaning you’re looking for (where “party” essentially means “meetup”)
Now, I’m not a native speaker, nor am I particularly fluent in kanji, so take this next bit with a grain of salt, but if you do intend to refer to a “dinner party that is also a seance” you may be able to combine them into 降霊宴会, that is literally “seance dinner party”. I say this because there instances where compound kanji will follow a similar pattern. For example, 自然 means “nature”, 言語 means “language”, and 自然言語 means “natural language”.
> Is this legal?
Stay where you are, the kanji policy will visit you shortly. I hope you have your New Kanji Proposal Request Approval at hand?