Help needed with some Greek words(possibly archaic)

[Lucifiel]

Hi, I'm not the translator but since she's busy, I'm posting here on her behalf.

Well, in this certain manga(Banana Bread), we've run into some issues, mainly concerning some Greek words. The tler btw, thinks the "the Prof is describing the meaning of the words themselves".

Context(script): http://www.geocities.com/kat_fighter22/bananap.html

These are the words we've already figured out by asking someone or on our own:

Ara theos(άρα θεός): "therefore (is a) god"
and
andoragaton= andragathia(ανδραγάθημα): "deed of valour/gallant deed"

Now, there's "men"(メン which I think is μὲν), gesutai(ゲスタイ) and karepon (カレポン). Neither the tler nor I have been able to figure out what these words mean and I don't know how to convert the last 2 Japanese sounds into Greek words. I did look up μὲν on Strong's dictionary for the Greek Old Testament and these were the closest matches but now I'm stuck:

http://strongsnumbers.com/greek/3304.htm
http://strongsnumbers.com/greek/3305.htm
http://strongsnumbers.com/greek/3306.htm

We'd probably need some help with figuring out the phrase "Ara teos gesutai karepon." as well.

Any help would be appreciated. :)

Thanks! :)

[Anax]

Hey there :3 It's fun to see Greek in a manga and I used to think I'd be of much use in a case like this. Boy, was I wrong >.>

This is indeed like decoding... The Japanese see a Greek word, then they think it's pronounced some way and then they turn it into katakana. Riiiight.

Either way, let's try to do this (with prof Stamatakou dictionary and Google :p ).

andoragaton: [andragathon/ανδραγαθών] male, adjective -No Dictionary Entry-
andragatheo/ανδραγαθέω: verb (anir+agathos/man+brave) -I am or I act as a brave man-
Note: Before the Greeks stone me, in ancient Greek 'agathos' didn't mean 'naive' like it does today, rather 'brave'. It's in the dictionary :p
andragathima/ανδραγάθημα: neuter, noun -heroic feat, act of bravery-
andragathia/ανδραγαθία: female, noun -The quality of being a brave man, bravery-

So, even without a dictionary entry on the word we were looking for, I think you're a getting a picture of what it means. Kinda like what Niigata said :tem

men: [men/μεν] conjuction, -Used to distinguish the word it is combined with, or the sentence it introduces from something that comes after and is usually introduced by de/δε, so that the two elements introduced by men... de oppose each other- (src. Dictionary of the Ancient Greek Language by Ioannes Stamatakos)

What Prof. John means to say here is that "men" on its own means pretty much nothing without 'de' >.>;; Unless of course 'de' is implied, which doesn't seem to be the case here either.

Even in modern Greek we say: "Ναι μεν, αλλα..." meaning, "Yes, but...". Notice that "men" isn't translated here, because it doesn't need to be. Another expression is, "Αφ' ενός μεν... αφ' ετέρου δε..." which equals in English, "On one hand... on the other...". We need to ask the mangaka really >.>

Concering menoun/μενούν and menounge/μενουνγε these are two and three words respectively combined into one. The dictionary lists them both as seperate words and as compounds (depending on the location).
My point is that we can't explain a word, by adding more to it. Unless we take it for granted that the mangaka has no idea whatsoever of what they are saying and that they might as well be using random ancient Greek words in place of others. For this scenario alone, I'm adding what little info the dictionary has on the two:

μεν ουν ή μενουν/men oun or menoun: latin imo vero -yes! truly! surely!-
μεν ουν γε ή μενουνγε/men oun ge or menounge: latin quin imo -"but, rather...", "better yet..."-

From what we've examined so far, the way Niigata speaks does indeed seem to indicate he is explaining the words he is introducing. In light of this and by virtue of nerdy Japanese mangaka further twisting already twisted English adaptations of ancient Greek words, I'll suggest this:

gesutai: [ginesthe/γινεσθαι] verb - present middle or passive deponent infinitive
ginomai ghin'-om-ahee: to cause to be (gen-erate), i.e. (reflexively) to become (come into being), used with great latitude (literal, figurative, intensive, etc.)
source (http://www.scripturetext.com/james/3-10.htm)

My dictionary didn't have an entry on the infinitive and I'm not a linguist so I was having trouble explaining the word, until I found this definition online which pretty much words what I have in my mind without the excess info that would probably obfuscate, rathen than clarify.

Concerning "ara teos" and "karepon", I need to think more and look into it more. How is "ara teos" written in kana? Are we sure it's two words and not one? "Karepon" sounds like:

karpos/καρπός: male, noun -fruit (both literally and metaforically as in "The fruit of one's efforts")-

It doesn't make sense though does it? If we combine what you guys found (which sounds right) and what I am suggesting, we get: "Therefore God becomes fruit". Riiiight. That's why I need more info on "ara teos". It could be some adjective or some such.

Anyway, that's all for now, tell me if you think it helped and keep me posted on any progress you guys make :tem

[Lucifiel]

Oh my, thank you so much for the help and I'm very very grateful. :) Fruit, huh? It just seems kinda strange that it'd be about a fruit. >>;; Let's just say I struggled for many hours on finding the relevant sounds.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BA%CE%B1%CF%81%CF%80%CF%8C%CF%82

From wikitionary, there's also something called "accusative"(καρπόν), eh? It sounds like the mangaka simply slapped in that "word" and didn't really check up on the relevant tenses?

The meaning is also definitely NOT line 2 from wikitionary, right? "the product of something: children (fruit of the body), poetry (fruit of the mind), profit"

And!
Ara teos = アラ。テオーウ (Yours truly deciphered it as "Ara theos". Maybe I was completely off? But then... Mandarin, my mother tongue, is pretty bad too at mangling foreign words. :P)

But... "theos" I just discovered... also has a feminine form! Ughhh lol. Let's hope that's not the case.

Also, I included the relevant raw images(cropped) if they might be of use to you.

Page 69:
http://img22.imageshack.us/i/croppage69.jpg/

Page 70:
http://img22.imageshack.us/i/croppage70.jpg/

Page 81:
http://img41.imageshack.us/i/croppage81.jpg/

Thanks, man. :)

[Anax]

The full RAW would be much appreciated Lucifiel :3 I don't really speak Jap, but I have friends who do and I wanna go over some parts with them.

Also, I have a question: Do you want to the info for a translation note or to add the original Greek in the speech bubbles?

Lastly, if indeed Niigata is giving the meaning of the words he is introducing then karepon should mean "difficult". On the other hand, "ara teos" would mean "truly" and that just doesn't make sense.

The accusative case of the noun καρπός that you mentioned crossed my mind as well, but I didn't think the mangaka would have thought to use proper Greek grammar. Then again, it's not like I would know what the correct Greek grammar would be when I barely make out words in there :P

Please answer my questions and I hope we'll wrap this up soon (what's your deadline for the release anyway?)

[Lucifiel]

Erm.. you can barely make out the words in there? LOL... your Greek seems pretty okay to me. Translation notes would be better. :)


The deadline? Mmmm... just take your time. Though I'm sure we can get this done within a month, right?

[eni]

Lucifiel, you can send him the links in PM too :amuse

But I already told Anax earlier that Ōshima probably picked the words wrongly up already, so I wouldn't dig too much into it. There were two fairly well known Greek movies released in Japan at that time, Elektra and Never On Sunday, with at least the second one must have had partly subtitles due to the content. So she could just mistook something from there or she used an Engrish-like Greece traveler guide or something :s

Her biography doesn't hint that she's in any way interested into Greek studies and considering the age of the manga, she was very limited to research on such a topic (no internet and western stuff just slowly started to raise in Japan). I kinda doubt that she got a hold on a Greek language study book just for a handful of panels.

Though, it's really interesting to see you brainstorming on this and I know that Anax is highly motivated to find the solution. So by any means, keep it up. I'm already looking forward to your release just by following the effort you put into the translation research :clap

[Lucifiel]

Oops sorry I wrote that post in a rush 'cos I'm currently using someone's netbook. PC died: long story there.

Oh well, we'll probably say that the mangaka very likely had no idea what she lifted. And that the closest words in terms of possible meanings were :"Blah blah blah". :P

Tahnks, well... I've always liked reading up about languages and their evolvement through the ages. It was very fascinating to very briefly read about the different forms of the Greek language. :)

Oh, so you probably know we're from hotcakes. :)

And Kololo, the translator, btw is Ecstatic. ;)

[Anax]

Man, am I hyper! I was taking a shower when it hit me: The mangaka probably saw the words written in some romanized form and adapted them in kana. This means that the letter "χ" (chi) which sounds like "h" in horse, would have been written as "ch" which sounds more or less like "k" in kill. Add to that the indistinction between "r" and "l" of the Japanese and you have a Greek word so twisted, that it took a native days to see it!

Here it is:

karepon: [(c)halepon/χαλεπόν] neuter adjective -difficult, hard to bear, 'heavy', harsh, terrible etc.-

*erases half a page of writting on ara teos*

Breaking News: After googling what I thought we had come up with: "αλήθεια γενέσθαι χαλεπόν" I came up with a Greek transcript of Plato's Protagoras. eni :love further googled a name in the text written in English (Simonides) and we ended up with this beautiful link (http://www2.swgc.mun.ca/animus/Articles/Volume%204/provenc4.pdf) :smile-big

Page 7, line 1: "andr' agathon men alathews genesthai chalepon!" that is, "andoragaton men ara teos gesutai karepon"!! The translation following the text is literal and really accurate (also in accord with my previous post), "Hard it is, on the one hand, a good man truly to become[...]".

There you have it! :smile-big It didn't take a whole month, just a cold shower and a few helpful friends :tem Now, I hope you found this useful, I was glad to be of any assistance and I'll be glad to help anytime \o/

[Lucifiel]

Oooh, so the mangaka did do quite a bit of research, except that due to language barriers and what not, the transcribed Greek was kinda funky? :D But at least she knew what she was talking about and even managed to do that much homework, instead of randomly pulling off some lines from some random book. :blink

Wow, thanks, dude and Enii! :D :love

So basically the Professor is really explaining the terms of those words, huh? Gotcha. :)



Currently, the main focus of the subject in study is the “Simonides’ Agon” which is a Pivotal Discourse in Plato’s(Πλάτων, 428/427 BC– 348/347 BC) Protagoras. The Protagoras(Πρωταγόρας) was part of the Socratic dialogues between Socrates and another wiser participant which involve moral and philosophical dilemmas that are never resolved, as indicative of real-life. In this case, the Protagoras contains a series of arguments between Socrates and Protagoras.
Simonides of Ceos(Σιμωνίδης ὁ Κεῖος) ca.(approximately) 556 BC-469 BC was a Greek philosopher and the Agon(ἀγών), was an ode to Scopas(Σκόπας; sculptor and architect and mentor to Simonides, 395 BC-350 BC ) in celebration of his victory in a chariot race.

andr' agathon men alathews genesthai chalepon (@#$@#$ I wish... I could decipher Greek. >_<;; )
ανδραγάθημα μεν αλήθεια γενέσθαι χαλεπόν
(Translation by Dr. Vernon Provencal):
Hard it is, on the one hand, a good man truly to become,

Read the rest of the ode here:
http://www2.swgc.mun.ca/animus/Articles/Volume%204/provenc4.pdf


Now, we've got a problem: how do we make that fit into the manga page... aha, notes. :P

And cold shower, eh? :) LOL... that's one heck of an inspiration. Do gimme your thanks to your friends too. :)

It's been awesome working with you. ;)

[eni]

Haha, you should have seen him in IRC... *cleans the channel from the confetti* <.<;

But yes, glad we could help. And it's nice to see that the mangaka actually used a historical correct quote (and Plato no less). I guess, I shouldn't underestimate Japanese authors just because of the 'Engrish'. A famous story of my Japanese teacher was always that her Japanese friend does perfect karaoke on historical German songs (e.g. Beethoven's Ode an die Freude), which is something no normal German can do >.>

[Lucifiel]

Well, you're talking about an author from the 24 gumi mangaka, who were responsible for revolutionising Japanese shoujo manga, many of whom seemed to be fairly geeky about knowledge.

Well, it seems that while it's true Japan has its fair share of bad press(has there ever been any country/land without any skeletons in its closet?), it seems there're also a lot of Japanese who're very enthusiastic and earnest in their pursuit of knowledge and altruism.

Oh... confetti, eh? Ehhhh???? Too bad I wasn't in that channel. :)

And yes, it is nice to see mangaka who know what they're talking about.

[Anax]

The historical note looks excellent, thumbs up! :ossu If any readers out there are geeky enough to care to read it, they'll at least know that we poured some effort in making it, eh? :amuse

Nevertheless, there's a small correction I need to make, in the Greek text. I don't have ancient Greek installed, so I can't add the funky accentation marks but I can at least show you the correct spelling :p



andr' agathon men alathews genesthai chalepon (@#$@#$ I wish... I could decipher Greek. >_<;; )
ανδρ' αγαθόν μεν αλαθέως γενέσθαι χαλεπόν
(Translation by Dr. Vernon Provencal):
Hard it is, on the one hand, a good man truly to become,

Perhaps I shouldn't have erased that part of my post :darn

You see, the mangaka erroneously transcribes "andr' agathon" as one word and "alathews" as two words :sweat If you check back to my post regarding the root of 'andoragaton' you'll see I made a mistake myself. I treated is as a single word ended with an omega, making it a past participle :darn (it's where I mentioned "no dictionary entry"). Anyway, the roots of andragathima and andragathia though were "anir" and "agathos", as mentioned in the dictionary. Plato just put those two words side by side :p

As for 'ara teos', it is one word "αλαθέως" meaning exactly what you guys translated, "truly". It's an ancient Greek adverb that I have never seen in my life, in a form which never would have crossed my mind. Today we sometimes formally say, "αληθώς" which is old Greek, but still it's far from "αλαθέως". If you want to understand how the same word can have such different spellings then read this:

Attic Greek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attic_Greek) vs Doric Greek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doric_Greek)
(There's a short version in the second article on the "Differencies between Doric and Attic section for those semi-bored to read).

That's all folks! :amuse

[Lucifiel]

Thank you for everything. :) I admit to being a bit swamped with reading right now but ... I will nevertheless look at that link in the near future. I've heard of Doric/Attic Greek though never really looked into it. Just trying to make sense of all those foreign words is a bit... mind-boggling. :)

Yep, we put a heck load of efforts into our manga... they'd better show some appreciation.

Well, different pronunciations are pretty understandable: I could go into the drastic differences between Hokkien and Cantonese, two Chinese dialects but suffice to say, they're like 2 different spoken languages, it's amazing how they're supposed to derive from Chinese.

And Nightswan, leader of the group, sends you her thanks too. :P