English language on Japanese e shop

[flare9]

Just noticed several switch games on the japanese e shop have english as a selectable language and since the switch has no region restrictions hopefully this game will be availible in english on japanese eshop next week

[Hardin]

We already know that it's Japanese only. Language information for the game has been available on Nintendo's website for some time. 

[flare9]

1 minute ago, Hardin said:

We already know that it's Japanese only. Language information for the game has been available on Nintendo's website for some time. 

Damn had some hope of getting in english early

[DragonLord]

Yeah, Xenoverse 2 was out a few weeks before in Japan, and it had all the English voice acting and translation completely on there.

[Captain Karnage]

to my knowledge every switch game that has an international release has all language options already on it

and as I typed this I realised that FE warriors has english on the japanese cart

[Arthur97]

This kind of reminds how Japanese games have seemingly random English thrown in for some reason.

[The DanMan]

4 minutes ago, Arthur97 said:

This kind of reminds how Japanese games have seemingly random English thrown in for some reason.

It's cool and foreign-- same reason why Latin tends to crop up in Western works.

[Thane]

3 hours ago, The DanMan said:

It's cool and foreign-- same reason why Latin tends to crop up in Western works.

English is everywhere even in the Non-English-speaking countries in the West. It's shocking, I know, but those exist as well. The U.S has an interesting relationship with Spanish, even having created a loose system called "mock Spanish", the most famous examples of which being the phrases "bad hombres" and "hasta la vista, baby".

This is a very interesting area of linguistics, especially with the advent of the internet and an increasing urbanization and globalization. I don't know nearly as much as I should, but it's a fascinating topic. Very relevant to Japan, too. I even wrote a small essay about it theorizing that, since English is more prevalent in the public eye of Japan than its own significant minority languages (Korean and Chinese), it might have its roots as far back as the late 19:th century where some important public figures even went so far as to suggest that Japan should stop using Japanese and start speaking English instead.

Edited September 22, 2017 by Thane

[The DanMan]

13 minutes ago, Thane said:

English is everywhere even in the Non-English-speaking countries in the West. It's shocking, I know, but those exist as well. The U.S has an interesting relationship with Spanish, even having created a loose system called "mock Spanish", the most famous examples of which being the phrases "bad hombres" and "hasta la vista, baby".

This is a very interesting area of linguistics, especially with the advent of the internet and an increasing urbanization and globalization. I don't know nearly as much as I should, but it's a fascinating topic. Very relevant to Japan, too. I even wrote a small essay about it theorizing that, since English is more prevalent in the public eye of Japan than its own significant minority languages (Korean and Chinese), it might have its roots as far back as the late 19:th century where some important public figures even went so far as to suggest that Japan should stop using Japanese and start speaking English instead.

Huh. Didn't know it went that deep; thought Japan in particular just thought it was hip and cool.

I knew it was prevalent elsewhere due to being the "global language" (used in UN meetings and so on) due to the dominance of Great Britain and now the US.

Edited September 22, 2017 by The DanMan

[Thane]

Just now, The DanMan said:

Huh. Didn't know it went that deep; thought Japan in particular just thought it was hip and cool.

At least in the beginning of the Meiji Restoration, Japan had a very complex relationship with the West and many other things. While I'm no expert and don't dare to make too many assumptions, the common consensus seems to be that there was a sense of inferiority in Japan when compared to the West, which was felt on many levels of their society, including the language. The Japanese classic "Wagahai wa neko de aru", literally "I'm a cat", makes fun of this.

You are right when saying that a lot of it has to do with being hip and cool, however. A lot of it has less to do with with what's being said and more with the image the language conveys. That is why it's popular to use French for menues there even though only a fraction of the population can read it.

3 minutes ago, The DanMan said:

I knew it was prevalent elsewhere due to being the "global language" (used in UN meetings and so on).

That is a very tricky topic. I know of EU meetings which have been cancelled due to not everyone being entitled to a translator of their mother tongue - languages are tools both in politics and the cultural life. Norwegian and Swedish, for example, are very similar yet are considered two separate languages due to politics, yet at least in Sweden there is a language spoken by a few thousand people within its borders which is much, much more different than Swedish is to Norwegian, yet it's merely considered a dialect. French is still spoken in the European Song Contest, yet German is not, even though there are more Germans than French, and so on. 

English is the de facto lingua franca in the world though, that's true. However, I don't believe it's the only language used in the UN; most countries wouldn't stand not being able to express themselves in their language. 

Globalization and technological advances mandate simplicity, however, and guarantees English priority and superiority so long as the West remains in power. Hell, it's speculated that trend would continue regardless, seeing as it's so ingrained in such a large percentage of the world's population.

[Jave]

5 hours ago, Captain Karnage said:

to my knowledge every switch game that has an international release has all language options already on it

Not all of them. Splatoon 2 is language-restricted by region. I.e. The Japanese version is ONLY in Japanese. This is due to the game having regional events. 

[Captain Karnage]

2 hours ago, Jave said:

Not all of them. Splatoon 2 is language-restricted by region. I.e. The Japanese version is ONLY in Japanese. This is due to the game having regional events. 

I think you can change it by changing the region in the system

if you do that it should work

[Jave]

16 minutes ago, Captain Karnage said:

I think you can change it by changing the region in the system

if you do that it should work

Not with Splatoon 2, it won't.

[The DanMan]

@Thane Ah. That's pretty interesting. Should probably read up on it more in my spare time.