Japanese-reading compound for "Moonfall?"

[WillyT]

Hello, I'm looking for what the transliteration and kanji would be for "Moonfall."

The context would be that this is the name of a place where "a piece of the moon fell to earth."

Japanese reading, please.

 

[Toritoribe]

月落 "Tsukiochi", for instance.

 

[WillyT]

Soo-key-O-chi? Roughly?

 

[Toritoribe]

Not "su" but "tsu". "Ts" in "cats", for instance.
There is a significant difference between long vowels and short vowels in Japanese language. "Ki" is a short vowel, like "kick".

 

[WillyT]

Thanks again, Toritoribe.

 

[Mike Cash]

Soo-key-O-chi? Roughly?

If you guys are going to be nipple-deep in borrowing Japanese stuff and words, at some point somebody really ought to make the effort to learn the fundamentals of the language. It would make things easier in the long run.

 

[WillyT]

I'm working on that myself, actually; however, I need to promote stuff for our debut event in July. Which means, I need the materials now and at least a basic understanding of how to pronounce some key words... I don't want to talk about these things prior to learning the language and have people adopt my bastardized pronunciation, which is why I'm verifying things here. In essence, I know I'm going to be the epicenter of my organization's lingo and preparing for it appropriately.

 

[WonkoTheSane]

No offense, but I'm betting the pronunciation is pretty bastardized just based on how English and Japanese use stress, pitch and timing differently.

Sometimes doing things quickly takes more time than doing them slowly.

 

[WillyT]

"Without going into a whole Japanese lesson about it (and I can later if you like) Tsukiochi is sort of wrong and sounds a bit stilted in Japanese. If you are going to equivocate it to the term "Moonfall" Getsuraku would be the correct of the two readings. Alternately, Ochizuki for Falling Moon would also work."

I talked to him "later."

" they're not technically wrong now that I look at it...
while the verb "to fall" is ochiru

So you can turn that into a noun as ochi

so ochi means "a fall down"

you could do that as tsuki no ochi

a fall of the moon

which then can be shortened to tsukiochi

sort of

But generally when you put two kanji together like that you change readings

and get getsuraku

Kind of like how emperor is mikado

and country is kuni

but you don't say mikadokuni even though mikado no kuni is correct

you say teikoku

so it kind of depends on context

which is one of the things that makes japanese difficult

As you study Japanese this will become clear and hopefully intuitive"


He told me to double-check. Would you ladies and gentlemen agree with his suggestions and reasoning?

 

[Mike Cash]

So you took our eminent native speaker's input to Joe Blow who passed freshman Japanese and he declared it "stilted"? Nice.

The problem is that if you're going to ask people to make Japanese translations of made-up stuff that no native English speaker would a clue what you're talking about without an explanation then you can't reasonably expect output that is going to be crystal clear and instantly understandable in Japanese.

 

[WillyT]

Actually, I fully-branded with Tsukiochi. I didn't take the help you guys gave me and say "hey, these guys have pretty much broken their backs trying to make me happy with something that sounds good... tell them how they're wrong!"

The org has attracted some attention from other historical combat groups. And it got pointed out that there may be better alternatives, the same guy said to seek an opinion different than his own on the changes he suggested. To be frank, I don't want to rebrand a third time. And if Tsukiochi is passable for what I'm trying to get across without looking like more of a joke than any other "made up land" to native speakers, then I'm all for it; if something he suggested is better, I'll put in the footwork, time, and money to rebrand again.

From my point of view, I'm surrounded by people with different variations of experience with the language and no way to tell whose experience is more valid than the next - though I appreciate you saying that Toritoribe is this groups "eminent native speaker." And for all he knows, it's something I put together with a English-Japanese dictionary or something of the likes.

I've been pretty clear with my experience and have presented it with humility here. I simply came back to this community, which has helped me quite a bit, and asked for a second opinion on criticism and follow-up suggestions. I have no intentions to insult. No intention to bite the hand that's fed. I'm just asking about the criticism.

 

[Toritoribe]

Here are examples of really-exisiting place names "~ochi". Show him this list as an evidence of the validity/generality of the reading "Tsukiochi".
Iseochi: 滋賀県栗東市伊勢落
Kitaochi: 滋賀県犬上郡甲良町北落
Takaochi-Town: 愛知県西尾市高落町
Nishi-yamaochi: 徳島県三好市池田町西山落
Hida-asano-yaochi-Town: 岐阜県土岐市肥田浅野矢落町
Makiochi: 大阪府箕面市牧落
Mataochi: 北海道標津郡中標津町俣落
Yaochi: 徳島県吉野川市山川町矢落
Yokoochi: 愛知県額田郡幸田町横落
Mizuochi: 広島県呉市川尻町水落, 富山県富山市水落, 富山県小矢部市水落
Mizuochi-Town: 福井県鯖江市水落町, 静岡県静岡市葵区水落町, 愛知県一宮市水落町, 京都府京都市上京区水落町
(There are so many examples of "Mizu(= water)ochi". This search result shows how important water was/is for people.)

Unlike the examples above, the same kanji 落 is read "otoshi" in the following place names.
Mizuotoshi: 福井県大野市水落
Kiotoshi: 宮城県伊具郡丸森町木落, 新潟県十日町市木落, 福井県大野市木落
Minmaya-kiotoshi: 青森県東津軽郡外ヶ浜町三厩木落

"Ochi" is a noun form of an intransitive verb "ochiru", whereas "otoshi" is from the transitive counterpart "otosu". Thus, "Mizuochi" means "a fall of water / water fall (from "Mizu ga ochiru"; "Mizu" is the subject of "ochiru".)" or "a fall into water (from "Mizu ni ochiru"; "Mizu" is the target of "ochiru" here. "People(or could be an animal)" would be the subject in this case.)", but "Mizuotoshi" and "Ki(= tree/wood)otoshi" are "Dropping water down (from "Mizu wo otosu"; "Mizu is the object of "otosu".)"/"Dropping someone/something into water (from "Mizu ni otosu"; "Mizu" is the target of "otosu" here. "Someone/Something" is the object in this case.)" and "Throwing tree/wood down", respectively. The places "Kiotoshi" must have something to do with forestry.

 

[WillyT]

Thank you very much for taking the time to reference examples. I will be keeping the Tsukiochi name.

 

[mdchachi]

But generally when you put two kanji together like that you change readings and get getsuraku

He's right but this change usually doesn't occur in names which is why tsukiochi sounds pretty natural.

Interestingly there seems to be no real place name of Tsukiochi but it does line up well with real place names. There is one moon-based place name: Tsukioka.
Anyway I think Tsukiochi is a great name. It's plausible, sounds good and direct meaning is the desired "moonfall."