please God just call it port

[ErryK]

I really wish people would stop repeating this statement. It's wrong. The Japanese nautical terms just include the kanji for left and right in their names. It's effectively as if port and starboard were called leftward/rightward instead.

The French translation uses bâbord and tribord which are their equivalent to port/starboard. I don't know what the German one does.

If it says left and right, then it says left and right. How is that wrong?

[Fawkes]

In the Royal Navy it was not until 1844 that larboard was abandoned for port in reference to that side of the ship. The term port however had always been used when referring to the helm (ie. sailing direction), in order to avoid any confusion between starboard and larboard in such an important matter.

Sounds like larboard only meant the left side of the ship itself, but the direction left was always port.

[IsuzuSento]

Isn't that a bit pedantic though? Leftward and Rightward are, essentially, left and right with "ward" added.

I was just using it as an example of what it's like. It's simple for Japanese because of the structure of their language. They don't have a specific kanji for port or starboard, but the Japanese nautical terms used in the attack are translated as port/starboard. Their kanji literal translations are "left ship" and "right ship". The French uses their standard nautical ones and based on this thread, so does the German.

[Khyra]

If it says left and right, then it says left and right. How is that wrong?

左舷 is "sagen" / port
右舷 is "ugen" / starboard
左 is "hidari" / left
右 is "migi" / right

So port/starboard is read as sagen/ugen.
Left/right is read as hidari/migi.

But the kanji for sagen/ugen gives you a hint, because it includes the character for left/right as the first character.

If you're hearing it, there's no clue, its just as opaque as English. If you're reading it, you can get a hint.

[IsuzuSento]

If it says left and right, then it says left and right. How is that wrong?

The attack doesn't just say left or right which is what they implied. In Japanese, the attack name contains the kanji for left and right, but only because the nautical term includes them. Edit: removed the translation part since Khrya's post illustrates that part better.

The kanji given in the attack name are translated to the normal nautical terms, port/starboard for English and the equivalents in French/German. It's not that the localization team is making things up. People keep talking about them as if it just said left and right. After all, part of what I replied to was "Port, Larboard and Starboard are all Koji Fox just trying to be clever."

[Hyperia]

I'm going to join the plea to change it to left and right. Until then, I'll just view Larboard as my opportunity to refresh my vulnerability stacks.

[IsuzuSento]

I'm going to join the plea to change it to left and right. Until then, I'll just view Larboard as my opportunity to refresh my vulnerability stacks.

I'd be happy if they just changed it to port. It's consistent with every other translation and doesn't require a) knowledge of an archaic term and b) is visually very different from starboard. Sure you need to know nautical terms, but at least they've already used port/starboard for an ability this expansion.

[Aomine1992]

As someone in the USN I was lost as heck when I saw Larboard, I was like was SE drunk when they did that lol

[TaleraRistain]

Hahaha yes, that messed me up so much. I work at a lab and we service vessels so I see port and starboard all the time.

[TouchandFeel]

Sounds like larboard only meant the left side of the ship itself, but the direction left was always port.

Oh boy, etymology time!

Starboard originates from the Old/Middle English word Steorbord which means basically "steer side" because ships at that time were steered with a large oar as a rudder at the back of the ship. Since most people are right-handed, the oar tended to be on the right side at the back of the ship and so the steering side or Steorbord and then starboard became the right side of the ship.

Larboard comes from the Middle English word Ladebord which means "lade" side. Now the root "lade" refers to containers of goods, especially foodstuff and meats as can be seen in other words such as larder. So it is believed that ladebord and later larboard comes from that being the side that the ship pulled up to dock and loaded and unloaded cargo from. Since the rudders were typically on the right side, the ship had to pull up to the dock with it's left side and so larboard became the left side of the ship.

As you referred to, the English Royal Navy later changed it from larboard to portside because larboard and starboard sound too much alike and could cause confusion when being called out on a ship. The word port wasn't really integrated into the English language until a little after and while references to port as a nautical term show up a few centuries before it's official adaption in the 1800's, larboard definitely predates it. Portside means precisely that, the side of the port which as I already explained with larboard is the left side. There is a little debate as to whether the port reference in portside is to the actual port that the ships were docking at or the port, as in door, that was not uncommon on large ships that would open into the hold for the loading and unloading of goods.