Senpai / Sempai spelling.

Making a discussion space for this ATT as requested.

The issue is if there is a "correct" spelling and should Sempai/Kōhai be renamed because of it, or American and Commonwealth Spellings applies here, as KageFuusha has strong opinions on it.

Btw, there exists an ancient and short-lived TRS for anyone interested.

Pinging ~MichaelKatsuro and ~KageFuusha as the active people on the topic if they want to discuss it further.

Not gonna pretend to know anything about the finer points of romanization and transcription, but will point out that you can move to rename something based on the title just being straight up wrong, provided you make a good case in the OP as in Role Reprisal being renamed to Role Reprise. (I will also add that a wick check would not be needed in such a case.)

I know that I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but as much as I like to have tropes being renamed to maintain consistency (such as Ethnic God vs. Ethnicity Monarch for a pair of inconsistent trope names), MST3K Mantra applies when it comes to trope names.

Though both Senpai and Sempai are spelled correctly (depending on the romanization used), Senpai is the much more common spelling.

To repeat, renaming a trope is only done if the name is obviously incorrect (such as Role Reprisal now renamed Role Reprise as "reprisal" is not the correct word for this context) or misused as opposed to maintaining consistency (such as the example of "demographic" and "demographically" being practically interchangeable when it comes to dissonant crossovers and inappropriate humour, respectively (both "demographic" and "demographically" are technically correct in both the contexts of crossovers and humour) or the use of synonyms such as the last words of Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films vs. Girls Are Really Scared of Horror Movies).

Edited by Nen_desharu on Apr 9th 2022 at 10:16:21 AM

This isn’t a rename pitched for consistency, though?

Oh, I misinterpreted what was stated.

I thought that it was to make the spelling of Senpai/Sempai consistent.

Kage claimed that "sempai" is objectively incorrect. I disagree, and believe that both "sempai" and "senpai" are acceptable.

It's one of those things where... If people called it Sempai, then it's Sempai, because that's the name for the thing even if it wasn't a real word when people started using it. Senpai is obviously acceptable too, of course.

as i wrote in the thread sempai is "incorrect" by today's standards in the sense that it's not the standardized romanization of the word any more. I think it makes sense to update the page in accordance with the times.

ehhh, the issue is part translation and part pronunciation. In Japanese, depending on your dialect, it can sound more like an N sound or more an M sound as its kinda in between (pronunciation) and it was once translated as always being pronunced like an M sound (translation). But what is considered "standardized Japanese", which is what's taught almost exclusively outside of Japan, has evolved over time to default to the N sound in translations. In sum, the word was always both senpai and sempai depending on how you speak, but translation practices have shifted. Given that this site is written in English, it makes sense to update our spelling in accordance with modern translation practices IMO

Edited by amathieu13 on Apr 9th 2022 at 12:29:50 PM

Can't we just treat it as we do the Commonwealth / American spelling debate? First-come-first-serve? It doesn't need to be messed with.

We could just decide to do that, but its not really the same situation because both spellings/translations are not used to the same degree currently. Senpai (and in general romanizing ん to an N) is far more common since the change in practices in the 1950s and that translation standard is the most commonly used today. Using M, while yeah not incorrect, is fairly outdated to the point that government guides from the US Library of Congress doesn't even include the M as an option.

Edited by amathieu13 on Apr 10th 2022 at 8:28:32 AM

senpai is the most common and generally accepted "correct" spelling while sempai isn't incorrect but less widely-used and based on an outdated romanization system, to make a long story short. my preference would be to change to senpai

To change to "senpai."

To be clear, I'm talking less about the title of Sempai/Kōhai and more about the individual uses of "Sempai" around the wiki, which is part of what spawned this debate. I don't mind renaming the trope to be more accurate even if it seems a bit pointless to me personally, but I also don't think we should go on a tear of changing every single usage of Sempai on the wiki. It's just not really necessary- outdated, but still technically correct, and the person who changed everything (as discussed on ATT) did it based on vague "translation websites" and the assumption that it's an objectively wrong spelling to use (which, as already discussed, isn't a true statement).

That's what I really meant when I said we could just use the first-come-first-served rule; I was talking about individual uses and not the trope title, which I'm fine with changing to the more common spelling.

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 10th 2022 at 4:33:25 AM

Since Sempai/Senpai is more of a "language changes with the times" sorta thing than a thing where both spellings are equally correct, we should change with it. to making Senpai the primary spelling. ("Colour" is not a spelling of "color" that's based on an outdated system and gradually seeing less use, so the analogy with American and Commonwealth Spellings doesn't hold up, I think.)

But also, y'know, please don't go changing every single instance of sempai on the wiki to senpai. Let usage evolve naturally.

I personally think both spelling are in still used interchangeably, but "senpai" has seemed to become the norm, so wouldn't mind if the main article was changed to that.

Also notice the uses:

• Sempai/Kōhai (1412 wicks)
• Sempai/Kouhai (182 wicks)
• Senpai/Kōhai (221 wicks)
• Senpai Kouhai (110 wicks)

i don't think looking at the number of wicks to the different redirects is all that helpful since it is heavily biased by the fact that Sempai/Kōhai is the default name of the trope and how the trope definition is written. If someone searches the trope to add an example, they'll see that the spelling on the site is Sempai/Kōhai and default to it. A more accurate measure would be to see how often the versions of the words are used organically on the site in comments, forum posts, descriptions, etc. Or just the fact that in more objective terms, as already mentioned, the N version is the most commonly used by non-native speakers.

As for changing it across the site, I didn't think that was the discussion at hand. I thought we were only talking about for Sempai/Kōhai. I just think the trope page name and description should be converted to default to the modern romanization. I don't think the site needs to do a clean up of all uses of sempai, but if someone switches a use from an M to an N independently, I'd also see no reason to revert it.

Possibly, but a big issue was that the troper in question changed every example of Sempai, so it's a pretty related thing to talk about beyond the trope name.

I prefer Senpai but I'll go with whatever consensus goes with here since I don't really have a stake in this issue.

If we're kind of voting, should this get a crowner? It's not like TRS though.

I'd prefer this go to TRS, since you'd be changing which page is the "main" one. As I said though, you don't really need a wick check, just an accessible-to-the-lay-person rundown of why the current name is outdated and why it's worth moving all those wicks.

"Colour" is not a spelling of "color" that's based on an outdated system

Actually, if you study your etymology, it kind of is.

You're right that it does not seem to be seeing less use though.

...if it isn't seeing less use, then by definition the system is not outdated.

British tropers would have to correct me because "colour" is how it's spelled in England and I haven't seen cases of the contrary.

I think their point is that Commonwealth English is an outdated version of the language, which... Citation Needed.