Anna Holmwood translated the name of Guo Jing's teachers as "The Seven Freaks of the South".

NLP tools like MeCab often have a thing where you can ask for the top-2 or top-N best parsings, not just one, and times like these I wish I could ask the translator, "what were your #2 and #3 picks for that name"?

Cuz. Should I parse this as, "seven weirdos of the south"?

Or, "seven wonders of the south"?

(In #JinYong aka #LouisCha's Legends of Condor Heroes.)

Because I was raised in languages that had separate words for maternal vs paternal grandparents and aunts and uncles, it turned out that I didn’t know one of my grandmothers’ names till I went to write my wedding invitation in my twenties. I only knew the other grandmother’s name because my dad had mentioned it once to illustrate a point of grammar it contained.

That reminded me of this tidbit in Louis Cha’s Legends of Condor Heroes wuxia novel translated brilliantly by Anna Holmwood:

‘But why had she not told Guo Jing [her son] Skyfury’s name? Lily Li was an illiterate country girl and she had only ever referred to her husband by the traditional “Brother” as a sign of respect. She had never thought to ask his given name.’

The ways cultures handle names and titles are so rich and variable. I love encountering new ways people do this.

(#JinYong #LouisCha #wuxia)