What is the Japanese word for Manchuria?

Manshuu is the modern word for the region.

Manshuukoku was the name of the Japanese puppet state in the 1930s. Manchukuo is an... Anglicization? I guess? Or maybe a Chinese-influenced pronunciation. Not sure. Anyways, if you say Manshuukoku now, everyone will think you're talking about eighty years ago.

Also, Manshuukuo is the same word as Manshuu with one kanji added, that for country.

Manshuu: 満州 (full state)

Manshuukuo: 満州国 (full state country)
 
Depends on when it was founded. If the place was already called California (post-early 1500s), it would probably be Kariforunia (the closest Japanese's limited sounds have to offer).

Otherwise, maybe it'd be named after one of the local peoples or some interesting geographical feature. OTL, California seems to be named after a fictional character from a Spanish novel, so not much help there. Guess you have room to be creative with this one.

By the way, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calafia
 

ShlomoLen

Banned
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.
 
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. :eek:
 

ShlomoLen

Banned
Ah, I thought that Arasaka would sound better than Arasuka, but okay. :eek:

You'd have to consider that the Russians gave the name Alaska to Alaska.

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.

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.
 
I could also suggest the name Kanto (關東) from Guandong. Historically this was mainly used for the southern part of Manchuria in the Kwantung Leased Territory, but they could probably apply it to the whole territory.
 

FDW

Banned
Ah, I thought that Arasaka would sound better than Arasuka, but okay. :eek:

The reason why it's A-RA-SU-KA and not A-RA-SA-KA is because the "u" sound is often dropped from words when they're spoken out in regular Japanese (An Example: the verb Desu "to be" is usually pronounced "Dess" when used at the end of the sentence), so the Japanese often insert the "U" series kana's into foreign loanwords to simulate consonant clusters.

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).

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)

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.

I think just about any ATL name of California that didn't call it Hesperia would call it something that referred to Gold in some way (not because of the metal, but rather the grass).


And lastly, the suffix the Japanese language uses for "Country" is -koku and not -kuo (The later is either archaic or Chinese).
 

gaijin

Banned
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.
 
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.

Manchuria is called Dongbei (東北), and since Manchuria isn't to the Northeast of Japan, I'm assuming that this is a borrowing from China, as opposed to some native Japanese name for the area.
 
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
 

FDW

Banned
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

I do know about that, but my grasp on Kanji are still a bit weak, so it slipped my mind.
 
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