How come the msq keeps using big words?

[HyoMinPark]

Funnily enough, while archaic, and still using many... big words so to say, Urianger is pretty easy to understand in Japanese. I think they went the extra mile with the english version to make him sound as convoluted as possible.

Actually the more I think about it, it isn't even that archaic in japanese, just overly polite, and sophisticated (?).

PS: to be fair both english and japanese are secondary languages to me.

I guess the best way they could think of to directly translate that into English was to use things like thou/thee/thy/thine and all that?? Since English doesn’t have anything like polite forms versus casual forms the way Japanese does; and thou/thee/thy/thine were once used in English as pronouns. Though, ironically, they conveyed intimacy with the other party one was speaking to, as opposed to being used for politeness (which would imply social/personal distance between two speakers)—so, technically, they can be argued as casual forms. If one was to consider their actual use back in the day.

Funny enough, in Early Modern English, “ye” was the formal counterpart to “thou”. Now, it’s overwhelmingly casual in the few areas it’s still used it (it’s mostly colloquial now), and “thou” is seen as more formal due to its use in religious texts; but when the pronouns were actually in spoken English, it was the opposite.

Sorry. I nerded out a bit there.

I dunno. I rather they didmt use ole English all the time. It always takes me out of it. Which is why my audio is in Japanese.

Trust me. They aren’t using Old English. You wouldn’t understand a lick of it if they were. I’d wager they’re going for Early Modern English, which is still largely intelligible to Modern English.

Here’s a sample of Old English:

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum;
Si þin nama gehalgod
to becume þin rice
gewurþe ðin willa
on eorðan swa swa on heofonum.
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg
and forgyf us ure gyltas
swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge
ac alys us of yfele soþlice

And the Lord’s Prayer in Old, Middle, and Early Modern English, for comparison: https://www.thehistoryofenglish.com/mp3s/lords.html