Re: Meaning of 零さん?

[Fumiaki Okushi]

Hi Friedrich, thanks for contacting the list!

Speaking as a native Japanese speaker (but with a long history of living 
outside Japan, meaning not always up-to-date with modern Japanese 
language usage), I highly doubt that a Japanese speaker will be able to 
deduce the reading "kobosan" given "零さん".  My reasons are as follows:

- The reading "kobo" for "零" is non-standard.  (It is not in the 
"常用漢字表".)
- The reading "kobo" for "零" is used as part of the verb "こぼす" (meaning 
to spill).  Because Japanese verbs conjugate, they are always followed 
by specific suffixes and "さん" is not a possible suffix (at least in the 
standard language).

On the other hand, when given "零さん", I would expect a Japanese speaker 
to read it as "reisan" and it could mean "Mr/Ms Zero".  (Note, "さん" 
could be used for both gender.)

When hearing "kobosan" (assuming all short vowels), it doesn't seem to 
mean anything to me.  (Japanese language distinguishes between long and 
short vowels.  For example, the "o" in "So" of "Sokoban" is a long 
vowel.  If it was pronounced as a short vowel, I don't think it would 
mean anything.)

Other random bits..

There is a computer game series called "零" (but I believe it is read 
"ゼロ" "zero".)
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9B%B6_(%E3%82%B2%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0)

"kobochan" "コボちゃん" is a well-known cartoon character.
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B3%E3%83%9C%E3%81%A1%E3%82%83%E3%82%93

Hope this helps.

Fumi(aki) Okushi

On 10/2/22 9:07 AM, Friedrich W. H. Kossebau wrote:
> こんにちは,
> 
> may I ask you for some native language speaker input on a proposal for a game
> app name based on the Japanese language?
> 
> For both legal and respect reasons the game app currently named KSokoban (see
> https://apps.kde.org/ksokoban) should find a new name not conflicting with the
> original game's name Sokoban (倉庫番), given the original game is still around
> and alive (see https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%80%89%E5%BA%AB%E7%95%AA).
> And yes, KSokoban is an old game developed in the KDE community, but had no
> official release all the time since KDE 3. But currently a new release is
> prepared, with the code now using Qt5 & KF5. And thus we came across this
> challenge.
> 
> The new name should still have some reference to the original name, given it
> has become the generic name for this game principle for many.
> 
> One of the ideas how to get to a new name was to take the latin character
> variant of the name, reshuffle the characters and map the result onto another
> Japanese name that makes some sense in relation to the game.
> Due to lack of own real knowledge of the Japanese language that was approached
> by creating possible sets of Japanese sylables/moras in latin characters and
> asking translation services (like jisho.org) to come up with a Japanese word
> matching that :)
> 
> Sadly that yield little, only one seemed like a candidate which though needs
> sanity checking by those actually understanding Japanese :)
> 
> For "ko" "bo" "san" the match was 零さん. While the suffix "san" I remember to be
> a male person addressing part (like "Mr."), the 零 part I have no clue about,
> only was inspired what the dictionary said this character itself to mean (in
> English): zero.
> 
> So I wonder if 零さん would mean or at least could be understood as the Japanese
> equivalent of an English "Mr. Zero"?
> Or would it mean something totally different and be unfit here?
> 
> A name with a meaning of "Mr. Zero" might work for the game in that either
> "zero" references a person with total failure because one always blocking one-
> self (getting "zero" done) or that it references a person completing all work
> down to zero boxes left to push at their place (leaving "zero" behind). That
> ambivalence might also offer identity both for people suffering to solve
> levels as well as those just walking through it without any problems :)
> 
> So, would "Kobosan" work as a name with sane Japanese meaning?
> 
> Would you perhaps have other ideas for a name based on the name-estimation
> principle (shuffle-latin-characters-and-map-reversely) described above?
> 
> See general name discussion here:
> https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-games-devel/2022-August/015427.html
> 
> Cheers
> Friedrich
> 
>