What's in a Name? (Astrologian Ver.)

[lackofwords]

The problem is that it doesn't carry any difference in the meaning while it does in japanese, in english they might simply tell us that there is a little difference between Ishgard's and Sharlaya's way of astrology. It's not a difference in meaning, it's just a different language, Jail and Gaol means the same thing while 士 and 師 doesn't mean the same thing, they chose not to make a difference in english because you can't create this in english.

I highly doubt it is just a different in occupation of Ishgard Astrologians vs Sharlaya Astrologians. Since the Astrologians in Coerthas are not battling on the front lines, and they are Ishgard civilians.

And it doesn't hold the significance of making the distinction between the two occupations. While you can give enough context to it, it'd be difficult to make the distinction without further explanations.
Such as, if you were to attempt to explain the following;

• Can an astrologian also be an astrologian, or are they exclusively an astrologian?
• Do they need to train as an astrologian before becoming an astrologian?
• Are all Ishgard Astrologians astrologians, or can they be astrologians?

I've made it sound silly intentionally, because it is silly.

For the most part, it's not a big deal for us. Since we'll probably just default everyone to being battle astrologians...
Such as if I were to ask for your phone number out of the blue without any context, you'd probably think cell phone number by default rather than home landline hone number, or work number.

But if this were an actual occupation, can't you imagine the confusion? It's like the difference between calling someone a field medic oppose to being a general physician.

[lololink]

It doesn't mean that Ishgard's astrologist are warriors, it means that they are linked to war, they are basically reading every moves the dragons will do before they do it, that's what their astrology is, reading stars for war. While it's not likely to be the case of the Sharlayan's way of astrology, Sharlayans are scholar, scientists, therefor their aim in astrology isn't to predict ennemies move but really study it as a science.

[Grey_Cain]

• Can an astrologian also be and astrologian, or are they exclusively an astrologian?
• Do they need to train as an astrologian before becoming an astrologian?
• Are all Ishgard Astrologians astrologians, or can they be astrologians?

I've made it sound silly intentionally, because it is silly.

But if this were an actual occupation, can't you imagine the confusion? It's like the difference between calling someone a field medic oppose to being a general physician.

Yes, it's quite easy, and you provided the basic idea. When you ask if there's a doctor in the place and someone says yes, do you know if they're a surgeon, a field medic, a general physician, veterinarian, psychiatrist? Are they even a medical doctor, or are they a physicist, a lawyer, a philosopher, or some other type of doctor?

If you asked your questions aloud in proper Japanese to a Japanese audience, they would be at as much a loss to answer your questions as you intended them to be for English speakers.

This is because they use a homonym. Translated to English, the homonym is lost. The actual comparison would be if you wrote Astrologian as Astrologer but still pronounced it as Astrologian. And since Astrologian and Astrologer mean the exact same thing in English regardless of context, the only way to create the equivalent to the Japanese difference is to add a term to distinguish them; either Ishgardian or Sharlayan.

If you treat Ishgardian Astrologian as the "war-like" term and Sharlayan Astrologer as the "civilian" term, but pronounce them as Astrologian and Astrologian then you have the proper equivalence to Japanese. However, since we in English don't like having specific names to describe generic terms, we just drop the first names and are left with the written Astrologian and Astrologer, and since those are both basically the same term as well, and are pronounced the same for the purposes of this explanation, one of them gets dropped. In this case, that leaves Astrologian behind.

[axemtitanium]

Crackpot theory: (Ishgardian) Astrologian is a dps class and (Sharlayan) Astrologian is a healer class and they can switch between them at will, just like Scholar and Summoner.

pleasedon'tdothis

[JaydeDancer]

That was very fascinating! Thank you!

It seems to me that 士 adds a more masculine tone to the word you are trying to say, while 師 adds a more. . .peaceful meaning to the word.

What I found to be especially interesting was that when I tried to run both terms through google translate it had a very hard time taking the characters that I told it were Japanese and turning them into English. In fact, it couldn't do it. All it gave me was romanji, which was wrong. (At least compared to what you said the romanji was up above). BUT when I translated the kanji from Chinese to English, I got the following:

星占術士: Astrology Warlock
星占術師: Astrology Teacher

I can see how a job could be called two different things depending on how people view a profession (police vs cops). Also, I am aware that Japanese kanji has its roots in Chinese hanji, which would explain why Google had an easier time going from Chinese to English.

[TinyRedLeaf]

It seems to me that 士 adds a more masculine tone to the word you are trying to say, while 師 adds a more. . .peaceful meaning to the word... Also, I am aware that Japanese kanji has its roots in Chinese hanji.

Well, you might like to know that 士 in Chinese can have different meanings depending on context.

As you can see from the link I provided, 士 in Chinese can refer to soldiers, scholars, ministers, as well as gentlemen. It doesn't have to be "martial" in tone and, in fact, in modern Chinese, 士 tends to refer to learned people in general.

In effect, the difference between 士 and 師 is not as major to Chinese/Japanese as it would seem to Westerners. Yes, 師 usually means teacher. But it can also be used to refer to any learned person in general (ie, a scholar). In other words, not very different from 士.

As Fern said, it's only a difference in nuances. That's all there is to it, really.

So, yes, whether you're Sharlayan or Ishgardian, an astrologian is still an astrologian by any other (Japanese) name.

I highly doubt it is just a different in occupation of Ishgard Astrologians vs Sharlaya Astrologians. Since the Astrologians in Coerthas are not battling on the front lines, and they are Ishgard civilians.

I get where you're coming from, but I think it's probably the case that not all astrologians go to war, so it this distinction between Ishgardian and Sharlayan astrologians may be arbitrary at best.

I believe it's similar to arcanists. They play a variety of roles in Lominsan society, from customs officials to administrators, scientists, tacticians and doctors. Similarly, most of the thaumaturges of Ul'dah are the priests of Nald'Thal first, rather than battle mages. This was actually clearer back in 1.0, where there were NPCs who contributed tithes to the thaumaturges in hopes to buying a better "afterlife" for themselves. And not all conjurers go to war. Most of them just tend to Gridania's forests, with the gifted few going to become hearers.

[Fernehalwes]

In the past FF games have often used the term Machina using a hard "C" sound (Mah Kee Nah). I wonder if the pronunciation of Machinist is supposed to using a similar sounding pronunciation or if you're going for the more traditional pronunciation?

In ARR we've used both 'machine' and 'machina,' the former in a more general sense, the latter to refer almost solely to Garlean technology. As the former is more widely seen throughout Eorzea, we're probably going to go with the soft 'sh' sound for machinist. I'd like to go into a little more depth, but the evil eye Oda-san is giving me right now has me frightened for my life, so you'll have to wait for further details.

[WellFooled]

I'd like to go into a little more depth, but the evil eye Oda-san is giving me right now has me frightened for my life, so you'll have to wait for further details.

Wait, don't go! Let us at least offer you a bribe first! D:

[EinherjarLucian]

Wait, don't go! Let us at least offer you a bribe first! D:

Or a drink. Or a bribe that's a drink.

[Eltaire]

I'd like to go into a little more depth, but the evil eye Oda-san is giving me right now has me frightened for my life, so you'll have to wait for further details.

But... you're an Ahriman! How could anyone possibly out evil eye you?