Forum:Information revealed in a foreign language

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Opening

How do we handle in-universe information that is divulged in a language other than English? Whether it be spoken verbally, or through writing? Furthermore, if it's the latter kind, what if it's a language that doesn't use the Latin alphabet??

I recently came across this scene early in The Bells of Saint John:

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This shot, set in Tokyo, contains an advertisement for a real world Japanese music album - Rockbound Neighbours by Nana Mizuki. From the English side of things, the title for Miss Mizuki's page can only be drawn from conjecture. However, the poster has her name written right there in Japanese (水樹 奈々).

Would one be allowed to take this info into account? WaltK ☎ 22:58, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

I feel like that would be reasonable, allowing us to translate stuff in stories. (Also I initially thought this was a thread about translation-exclusive material like GoldenEye 007) Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 23:03, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Considering there are full stories released in other languages (Amser Gwyllt and Daleks, invasión a la Tierra año 2150) I think it's perfectly acceptable to translate information. (Also ditto @Cookieboy 2005, J too initially thought this thread was about translation-exclusive material.)

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

23:51, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Ties into Forum:Loosening T:NO RW. Suffice it to say that I strongly disagree. (Even putting aside the fact that translation is impossible.) You can sometimes pin down what words mean, IU, from context, imo, but that makes it very difficult to then say that information is revealed from foreign languages, except through painstaking analysis of how new phrases relate to old ones, what these new phrases mean, and then these new phrases referring to things IU and giving you info. See, for instance Talk:Aztec calendar for some gestures in this direction. It was a fair bit of work, and I think that this is how we should proceed, not just assuming that phrases mean the same thing IU as they do OOU. (Most obviously there's reason to be skeptical that a prop department would get labels correct for a foreign language, or that actors in Britain in a period that ranges from the 1960s to today would speak a foreign language in ways that aren't without controversy.) Najawin ☎ 00:05, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

While I understand your viewpoint I'm not sure I'm convinced by it. If we're not allowed to translate anything, then how the hell do we cover Daleks, invasión a la Tierra año 2150, which is exclusively published in Spanish? And then, what do we do if a character speaks another language in performed media but no subtitles or translation is given?

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

00:55, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I simply don't understand the equivalence between something being originally published in another language than English, while the characters are still (ostensibly) diegetically speaking English and diegetically, within a work originally published predominately in English, there being words from languages other than English. These seem to me to be entirely different scenarios.

And then, what do we do if a character speaks another language in performed media but no subtitles or translation is given?

See my prior comment. If we can derive a translation from solely IU sources, sure, we can talk about that. If we can't, we can mention that a statement in another language was made (perhaps mentioning what it was, if we know IU), explain its IU effects, and then in the BTS section we can elaborate further. Najawin ☎ 01:34, 22 April 2024 (UTC)