Picking another english word that is synonymous to “Surround” most definitely has less ambiguity than “Go”.
Those two words are notequivalent in ambiguity…for this game…at all. Even the words synonymous with “go” which usually comes across as “to go” are FAR more ambiguous for this game.
This is simply an opinion poll using english-latin words that better describe the game.
In a overall translation sense extracted from the original name, Weiqi.
It will not lose “hometown merit” being an english name because look how far it has gotten with a mistranslation i can not emphasize this enough.
Flippant remarks like “nothing will change” arent necessary given that this is simply a poll, that is optional to participate in.
I like this. We implied in the original post as sounding it out as a sentence so yes a full phrase also makes complete sense.
The reason were using synonymous eng words of “encircle” is because The original name is 圍棋 and what were looking for is something that describes this… 圍 …specifically.
Why not this 碁? After all, that’s the important part, isn’t it? 囲碁、詰碁、碁盤、碁石、早碁、持碁、連碁、指導碁 and remember, ヒカルの碁? You keep calling it mistranslation, but is it really, I call for language expert
I believe I already referenced this. But it’s distinct from other english words, and is a bit closer than saying weíqí without pronouncing the “q” with the back of your mouth (as you do in proper mandarin) and having no regard for tones (which most Americans can’t distinguish anyway).
Yeah, tones in Mandarin can make things hard for some English speakers, but “baduk” can have a similar issue if you don’t properly distinguish your “p”, “pp”, and “b”.
Both forms are recognizable to other English speakers, despite being less so to natives when you don’t know the language (luckily I can speak Mandarin, so that one’s a bit easier to me).
Also, running under the radar is the Chinese colloquial name for the game (at least in Taiwan) of 白黑棋 (“Baiheiqi” lit. meaning “black white game”). I once remember talking to one of my Mandarin teachers on how to write 围棋 in traditional characters only to find some confusion before she recognized it as 白黑棋.
But the point is that the foreign names stick out in English, and are usually pronounced well enough for other english speakers to recognize (even if a native of Korea or China wouldn’t). Hence why we use so much Japanese vocabulary.
Note they use 囲碁 frequently, such as on the sign on the lamppost, since words with a single mora are short and often have many other meanings as well (in case of go, it also can mean: language, five, a honorific prefix, a prefix meaning mistake and countless pronounciations of kanji in compound words).
If you’re not convinced, it literally states on the intro of the Japanese Wikipedia page that 「 単に碁（ご）とも呼ばれる」(translated: it is also called simply go), there’s this question on stackexchange and finally here you can read it from a native speaker.
But of course I’m just trying to be facetious
Personally I find the Japanese kanji a lot nicer, 囲 even looks like a go board! And 碁 just means go, whereas 棋 usually is more associated with chess (of which the local variants xiangqi and shogi are more popular in China and Japan respectively, not sure about South Korea though).
Yeah, I’ve heard of it being referred to as “igo”, “ego” (although maybe not really this), “go”, and “goe” from various Japanese speakers, which leads me to believe it’s partially a dialectical thing.
@adude9000, I think your posts are making some assumptions, which I disagree with.
That “go” is mistranslated from the Japanese name of the game.
I believe that the original intent was not to translate the meaning of the name, but instead to just emulate the sound.
Others (@Vsotvep, @S_Alexander) have also pointed out that dropping the first syllable is valid usage, as seen with native Japanese speakers.
Hence, it is a borrow word from Japanese (not a translation), much like many other go terms often used by English speakers (e.g., atari, joseki, hane, fuseki, aji, tengen, sabaki, etc).
That we need the name of the game to be translated into English.
I personally prefer using one of the well-known borrow words (e.g., go, weiqi, baduk) rather than another newly selected English word, which almost no one else would understand.
I think a pertinent question would be: “Do people prefer to call the game by one of the borrow words or by some other English word?”
What do you prefer to call the game? Select everything if you don’t care.
Go
Igo
Weiqi
Baduk
Goe
Some other English word (such as “surround”, “encircle”, etc.)
You say “a poll in a forum won’t do much” i never NEVER said it will.
It is a frivolous opinion poll of cherry-picking a rough-english translation of 圍棋.
It is a simple poll, if you do not care for a english name then simply state that (trust me its not uncommon) and leave, its really ok.
Ok.
We already acknowledged that it is a borrowed word. In the intial post,
So as much as we know, this game is a mistranslation of Igo (which the Japanese name for this game)
and if the word “mistranslation” is the issue then i will say, the way the name Go is rendered from Igo doesn’t give a fair interpretation in to native english speakers. Because the word “Go” is used very frequently as something unrelated.
Things like that happen often in translations.
Which we expected you all know already and could infer when said “mistranslation”.
2… We are not saying thereNeedsto be a change. Period.
Please refer back to the beginning of this reply and re-read.
(By the way i changed the name of this thread to try to limit toe-crushing I’m doing…with a poll.)
We thought there was as much inference (look it up in the dictionary) as was possible in the very first question for seasoned players, but if you all want to keep tally wagging then go ahead.
The amount of patronizing by ignoring any and all english translation in-turn for Baduk or Weiqi (despite your trouble or wrongly pronouncing either) was condescending given that it is the reason this was made in the first place. And i dont mind holding hands through another cycle of explaining what has already been written in the start of a frivolous opinion poll. Please Read. Reread if need be.
You’re mostly re-active and not pro-active at a poll, when you could…just read.
Not an entire new naming system. Just the title. And yes many english translations sound silly, thats why i made the poll so we could figure the best sounding one and then ‘Go’ from there…=D
We don’t need another name. “Go” is established, and there’s nothing wrong with it. The fact that the word “Go” has other meanings is irrelevant - this is common in English - nobody is proposing to rename games like draughts or poker.
“Encircle” comes from French. Why are we using a French loan word to rename an East Asian game? If “Go” is a problematic name, (it certainly makes googling things problematic, at the very least), I’d propose one of the following words for inclusion into the gestalt abomination that is the English language:
Igo
Weiqi
Baduk
0voters
Vote for your favorite!
Also, all of the words in the original poll come from Latin, Greek, or French, with the exceptions of “band” and “wreathe”. If we need a no-loan-words-English word for the game, the rest of the options should be removed.
