Katakana Analysis Final

In Japanese, titles seem to often be transliterated rather than translated. Looking at the Japanese version of the movie “Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai"  (ゴーストドッグ:ザウェイオブザサムライ), rather than putting “Ghost Dog” in Katakana and translating the rest (as Japanese items are usually titled in America), the whole title is translated. Thus even the English loan word from Japanese, “samurai,” is treated as a loan word from English. It seems then that the Japanese treat a whole title as a single unit. The movie “Le Samourai” operates on the same principle. According to amazon.jp, this French movie is titled “サムライ” written in katakana for the Japanese release. It is interesting that they dropped the article “le” when they kept “of” and “the” for Ghost Dog. Perhaps it is because Japanese requires no articles, and this one is not essential for the title as a whole. Either way, foreign titles do require katakana even where the word is one as familiar as さむらい. Looking at “samurai” more broadly in Japan may help explain this phenomenon as well.

Commenters have pointed out that the Japanese animeサムライチャノウー also uses Katakana. The anime has many Hip Hop and western influences, which strongly influence Ghost Dog as well. Similarly Le Samourai is highly stylized in ways similar to the anime. Perhaps that katakana was intended to capture this effect. This is further supported by the fact that the more common word for “さむらい” in Japan is “ぶし” which Americans would only recognize from “ぶしど.” While “さむらい” is still a Japanese word, it is foreign enough in these contexts to warrant katakana.

Finally, the album “Mecca and the Soul Brother” (メッカアンドザソウルブラザー) was, according to amazon.jp, also fully transliterated. However this does make more sense, since both “Mecca” and “Soul” are usually written in katakana according to various sources on the internet. This allows it to be clear that they are foreign and correctly associates the word “soul” with the foreign genre rather than the philosophical concept. 

In cases such as these, it still seems hard though to explain why exactly titles are transliterated rather than translated. It seems to be a purely cultural trend though, and thus cannot be properly explained anyway. Consider also that certain titles are often left untranslated in English, such as “Yojimbo” in all its releases. Transliteration both makes the object seem foreign and helps where there is no proper translation. Perhaps leaving the titles as they are helps to advertise the mystery of the West. Because katakana is so tied up with these complexities of culture, it is easy to see why the textbooks would have trouble explaining it. Katakana does not abide by any strict logical categories in a way which only those fluent in Japanese can appreciate.