Proper nouns

The third category is the proper nouns. As a fantasy genre, Pili glove puppetry is no exception in creating terms of its own. The proper nouns in the show include names of the characters, locations, residences, martial arts moves, weapons, and characters’ identities or positions. In my opinion, this is perhaps the category that presents the most difficult translation challenges. The choice of words for a character’s name usually gives a general idea about the personality of the character. If translated according to the meaning of the character’s name, then it is very likely that the result does not even resemble a name at all, but would appear more like a title or appellation. Interestingly, a character almost always has a title preceding his or her actual name, constituting the character’s name in its entirety, which is often used when the character is being addressed in a formal setting. Apart from the title and the name, a character also has several other names, nicknames, and/or cognomens.

With what form a character is addressed generally depends on the nature of the relationship shared by the addresser and the character, or the situation in which the conversation is set.

Take Yi Ye Shu the Ever Wise (百世經綸一頁書) for example, “Yi Ye Shu” (一頁書), the character’s name, directly translates to “one page of a book;” and the title, “the Ever Wise”

(百世經綸), means something like “a hundred years of knowledge and wisdom¹⁷.” Another

17 The character is inidicated in his name to be a very wise person, and thus “a hundred years” is not actually a hundred years, but is only a way of saying “a very long time.”

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common appellation for this character is “the Buddha” (梵天), which is a respectful name used to address Yi Ye Shu usually by someone who does not know him very well or when someone wishes to show respect for him. Due to the nature of Yi Ye Shu’s character,

however, the respectful name is quite frequently used, as he is a well respected character and one of the strongest characters in the Pili glove puppetry show.

The names for locations and residences are relatively less difficult than the names for characters, albeit with their own challenges. The Realm of Misery (苦境), for example, refers to an area located in the Central Plains (中原), where the main storyline of the Pili glove puppetry show takes place and the home of most of the show’s protagonists. While the Realm of Misery (苦境), literally “misery area,” is able to be translated according to its meaning, West Mountain Biecao Hut (西山別草亭), the name of the residence of a character in this episode, requires a different approach. When it comes to the names of locations or residences, I try to retain the meaning in the source text in hopes of successfully carrying the description of the said place across. However, sometimes it may result in confusion when attempting to translate the name word by word. The third Mandarin character of West Mountain Biecao Hut (西山別草亭), bie (別), can mean “separating” or “leaving” as a verb, or “other, special” as an adjective, among other definitions. The fourth Mandarin character, cao (草), means

“grass.” Since these two characters do not make a valid phrase in Mandarin, not that they do not convey a meaning separately, I chose to translate them together using the Romanized

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system, hence biecao (別草), while retaining the meaning of the remaining characters.

Another type of proper nouns is the names of the martial arts moves. Translating this part requires using creativity and imagination while conforming to English usage and

grammar. The name of an attack usually reflects the nature and style of the character’s martial arts as well as the character himself. For example, Chaos of Dark Devils (夜魔淒八荒), which means something like “night devil wreaks havoc far and wide,” is a move of a supposedly evil character, thus his attacks have names with words such as “devil,” “dark,”

“hell,” and so on. On the other hand, the Grand Buddha Strike (大梵聖掌), which, word by word, means “large Buddha holy palm.” This move, as can been seen quite obviously, belongs to the Buddha, or Yi Ye Shu the Ever Wise. The names of Yi Ye Shu’s attacks are frequently associated with light, holiness, or Buddhism, given Yi Ye Shu’s identity as a major protagonist who practices Buddhism and is a monk himself.

In the Martial World of Pili glove puppetry, naturally there is no shortage of weaponry.

Apart from the most common sword and saber, other weapons in Pili glove puppetry include spear, lance, stick, bow and arrow, and more. Since sword and saber are the most frequently used weapons in Pili glove puppetry and are the main recurring weapons in the episode I chose to translate, I would like to discuss the translation challenges posed by these two types of weaponry. The biggest issue I have is when it comes to the phrase daozhe (刀者), which means “wielder of saber” or “a person who uses saber.” While it is quite straightforward that

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a wielder of sword is known as a swordsman, it is not the case with saber. In an attempt to distinguish between sword and saber, in the end I used a rather difficult and rarely used word,

“sabreur” for daozhe (刀者). Although the word “sword” can sometimes mean both saber and sword in the English context, in the Chinese culture they are two very different weapons, whose differences are frequently shown in Pili glove puppetry. Also, every weapon in the show has its own name, which, as with the names of martial arts moves, requires creativity and imagination when translating, especially due to the weapons’ close association with their owners.

The position or status of a character also constitutes a large part of the proper nouns.

Phrases such as zhangmen (掌門), dianzhu (殿主), mengzhu (盟主), and houye (侯爺) are similar to “job titles,” which indicate the character’s identity or position, usually as the leader or an official of an organization. Because these phrases are mostly used in ancient times, it wouldn’t make much sense to use terms such as “president,” “manager,” or “officer.”

Therefore, while the source text usually presents many different names for these positions,

Figure 4-1. A sword (left) and a saber (right) are two types of weapons whose differences are often emphasized in Pili glove puppetry. The sword is called High Wisdom, whose owner is a wise, powerful main protagonist in this episode. The saber is called the Butterfly Saber, wielded by a character named Butterfly Man.

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the most common English words I have chosen to translate as are “master” and “chief.”