Can I ask what a Japanese Alaska would be called? (I'm guessing Alasaka or Arasaka?)
You need to know two things about the Japanese language.
- There is no L, so replace it with R.
- All consonants - with the exception of N - have to be followed by a vowel. Normally, when transliterating foreign words, the Japanese use U (master spark -< masutaru suparuku, spell card -> superru karudu)
So it would be Arasuka.
Ah, I thought that Arasaka would sound better than Arasuka, but okay.![]()
The name "Alaska" (Аляска) was already introduced in the Russian colonial period, when it was used only for the peninsula and is derived from the Aleut alaxsxaq, meaning "the mainland" or, more literally, "the object towards which the action of the sea is directed".[7] It is also known as Alyeska, the "great land", an Aleut word derived from the same root.
Ah, I thought that Arasaka would sound better than Arasuka, but okay.![]()
You'd have to consider that the Russians gave the name Alaska to Alaska.
If the Japanese are there first, they'd use a different name, like 氷陸 (Koririku - Land of Ice) or 冷岸 (Hiyakishi - Icy Coast).
As for California, if the Japanese were there first - and not the Spanish - it would be 黄金草原 (Kogane sogen - Golden grassland) or 黄金原 (Koganehara - Golden Land).
Have fun.
My assistant is actually from Manchuria and she always calls it Tohoku (東北).
Literally it jus means East North. Japan itself also has a Tohoku area (that's actually where the earthquake was last year, the quake itself is known as the great Tohoku quake).
I am not sure though if this is official name or just people say for convenience sake. Tohoku (just like previously mentioned kanto area) is basically a geographical description, but also doubles as the name of an area. It's a bit confusing actually.
It depends on whether they choose to use the local name (modified of course), or develop their own name, or split the baby and do both (Like how Japan refers to the US as "Amerika" and "Beikoku" IOTL)
Uh, surprisingly enough "Beikoku" is derived from "Amerika".
Before they used strictly phonetical kana to write European and American countries' names, the Japanese, like the Chinese still do, used kanji with corresponding pronunciations to write those names. One of the ways of writing America was:
亜米利加(A-me-ri-ka)
The second ideogram(rice plant) can be read as "bei" as well as "me", so you get "bei" as way to refer to America(for instance, "Hokubei" = North America).
A similar case would be "Fukoku"(France) being derived from "Furansu"(仏蘭西).
EDIT: You probably already know that FDW, but I felt it would be better to expand on it