Good lord, that accent. Is that really the closest to what her dialect is when compared to English?
Suzukaze speaks in the Tokyo Shitamachi dialect, a character trait usually associated with the Edokko (child of Edo, or Old Tokyo) archetype. Shitamachi is the dialect of the working class, which stands in contrast to the Yamanote dialect, the 'posh' dialect of the upper class. The Yamanote dialect would eventually evolve into modern day Standard Japanese.
I picked Cockney to 'translate' the accent as it is also a working-class dialect, and from another capital city to boot.
The sociocultural background of the two dialects are also strikingly similar:
(spoilered for length)
Show
... Both Edokko and Cockney are of clearly pre-industrial origin. The term "Cockney" (in the specific sense of a Londoner) was in use by the seventeenth century. whereas "Edokko" appeared in the late eighteenth century. In origin, both terms appear to have referred in many cases to the upper ranks of the commoner class, living at the heart of the traditional merchant city. The original Edokko seem to have been wealthy rice brokers (fudasashi) who catered to the hatamoto class of samurai, whereas "merchants and first-rate tradesmen" are said to have qualify as Cockney. As for locale, a Cockney was one born "within the sound of bow Bells," that is, near the church of St. Mary le Bow in the center of the City of London, whereas a proper Edokko, by a similar tradition, had to be a parishioner of one of the two ancient shrines which lay to either side of the original machi-chi, Kanda Daimyoujin or Sannou Daigongen.
In the course of time, however, the locale of these two figures shifted to the east, in Tokyo away from the Shiba-Nihonbashi-Kanda belt north towards Asakusa and across the river to Honko-Fukagawa, and in London beyond the walls of the City to the area known as the East End. In more recent times, as both Edokko and Cockney have become more and more idealized as folk figures, a considerable tolerance of locale has developed. thus Julian Franklyn admits that the Cockney can actually be born anywhere in London if he has the proper qualifications of dialect and spirits, and the recent Otoko wa tsurai yo (roughly, "It's Tough To Be a man," suggestive of the self-conscious masculinity in the Edokko image) film series extends the base of Shitamachi consciousness as far east as Katsushika, some eight miles from Nihonbashi.
At the same time, the class status of both Edokko and Cockney became progressively more plebeian in the course of industrialization. As the wealthier commoner classes increasingly aped the aristocracy and moved off to West End Houses or country seats, the quintessential mark of the Cockney became his refusal to ape his social betters. So too the Edokko came to be conceived as one who stood up defiantly to a samurai, with none of the sycophantic airs of rich merchants and even a positive aversion to the accumulation of wealth. The Cockney similarly is seen as undaunted by airs, self-reliant and self-supporting, tending to side with the underdog rather than ape his betters. In profession, Edokko and Cockney alike came to be typically "street people": peddlers, pitchmen, costers, ricksha-men, cabbies, beggars, on the whole traditional menial urban professions of high mobility and inevitably poor. ...
When you need to explain the phrases and words in your translation, you might have gone too far. Though I'm personally the guy who thinks that if there weren't german/italian words in the original work, they shouldn't be in the translation. Thanks for your hard work though.
Dialects are always a cultural thing and you will often have people even in their own countries not understand even the dialects spoken in their own country. Cockney or redneck or even Southern speech in America can honstly seem like their own language just like Kansai does to even alot of native japanese speakers.
Suzukaze now (at least in my head) speaks fluent Ork.
OF COURSE, YA GIT! NOW WE'Z SHUD FIND SOME NICE ORKY STUF FOR HER RIGGIN LIKE POINTY STIX AN' HUMIE SKULLS. THEN WE'Z GIVE HER THAT NICE PAINTIN OF GREEN SO SHE LOOKS LIKE DAH OTHAH ORK BOYZ. SUPPOSE SHE COULD BE LUMPED WITH DAH OTHAH SHOOTA BOYZ. OH AND ADD MORE DAKKA BECAUSE SHE NEEDS MORE OF DAT TOO.
You should have transcribed the entire thing into Cantonese or Shanghainese for maximum irony. (I know that's not really possible, except maybe with sound approximation using the Latin script.)
Yer hoppin' pot 're 'nuff flexible in adaptin' yourselves...
Hopping pot → LotWhy the bleedin' hell do we 'ave ter celebrate it anyway!Humbug!!Ooo, sum touchin' Jackanory abaht sum western god heap of coke and 'is birthday.Cockney rhyming slang:
Jacknory → Story
Heap of coke → BlokeAdopting parts of different cultures and enjoying them... it's this very flexibility and adaptability of the Japanese people that I find appealing. Among others.Bunch o' barmy bints...We're aw wite and proper Buddhists, aye!Gormless gits!!Tja, Suzukaze...Wot's wif the bloomin' Merry Christmases!Suzukaze talks with an Edokko dialect in the original.
