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Japanese interpretations of Japanese-speaking Chinese - qwertyytrewq - 2011-12-06

Moving from playing video games in English (my native language) and into playing it in its original language (Japanese), I noticed the following examples (so far):

Jam Kuradoberi from Guilty Gear XX (VS fighting game): She seems to end her sentences a lot with ある.

Tenchi Souzou 天地創造 also known as Terranigma (Super Famicom RPG): In this game which is based on the real world, there is a Chinese-style town and a Japanese-style town (more like a city). Most people in the game speak Japanese as normal (だ、です、etc) but the people in the Chinese-style town often end their sentences with ある. Not just ある but it specifically shows it as katakana (アル).

What is the connection between Chinese people in Japanese video games and ある instead of だ and です?

Interesting note 1: Due to the existence of あいや in the Chinese people's speech, one can reasonably assume (or at least, I did) the Chinese town is supposed to represent Hong Kong as opposed to mainland Chinese.

Interesting note 2: In the English version, the Chinese townspeople speak broken English.

Japanese interpretations of Japanese-speaking Chinese - JimmySeal - 2011-12-06

qwertyytrewq Wrote:Interesting note 1: Due to the existence of あいや in the Chinese people's speech, one can reasonably assume (or at least, I did) the Chinese town is supposed to represent Hong Kong as opposed to mainland Chinese.
I'm pretty sure I've seen 哎呀 quite a lot in Taiwan Chinese. Are you sure it's exclusive to any certain region?

Japanese interpretations of Japanese-speaking Chinese - jessui - 2011-12-06

「アルヨ」 (and I guess in some cases アルネ or just アル) at the end of sentences is part of
a stereotype/gag of how Japanese is spoken by Chinese people- you'll see it in anime/manga as well. There are different ideas about where this stereotype came from (people don't actually speak this way):
http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1312921353
http://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/664789.html

Japanese interpretations of Japanese-speaking Chinese - qwertyytrewq - 2011-12-07

Thanks for the explanations.

JimmySeal Wrote:
qwertyytrewq Wrote:Interesting note 1: Due to the existence of あいや in the Chinese people's speech, one can reasonably assume (or at least, I did) the Chinese town is supposed to represent Hong Kong as opposed to mainland Chinese.
I'm pretty sure I've seen 哎呀 quite a lot in Taiwan Chinese. Are you sure it's exclusive to any certain region?
I don't know whether it's exclusive to a certain region and I'm also not familiar with Taiwanese Chinese.

However, I am somewhat familiar with Mandarin Chinese and much less so with Cantonese Chinese and based on my experience, あいや is heard a lot more often in the latter (if at all in the former).

The town in the game was not in Taiwan but located where China is, which is why I assumed it was a Hong Kong town.

But I'm not the game developer, they can easily intend the town to be Mainland Chinese, who knows.