I think this doesn't have to do with the writing system, but with how heavily a culture relies on context to convey meaning. In general, East Asian cultures do it way more than the ones from Western Europe and the Americas, so Japanese/Mandarin/Korean/etc. speakers are way more likely to omit contextually clear words than German/English/French/etc. speakers. And if the translator is inexperienced they might try to translate the sentences word-by-word, or even get the context wrong, and in both cases you'll get issues.

EDIT: crafted a cute example based on… well, weeb knowledge. Consider the following situations.

1. Your friend stumbled and fell down, and you're worried they might have hurt themself.
2. You stumbled and fell down. You didn't hurt yourself, but a friend is worried you did.

Your typical English speaker would answer #1 with "are you alright?" and #2 with "I'm alright." Or similar. They might perhaps clip the verb from #1, or replace "alright" with "okay" from either, but the subject will be always there.

And yet that's exactly what Japanese does with "大丈夫" daijōbu. Sure, you could phrase it as a question in #1, like "大丈夫ですか。" daijōbu desu ka?, but for most part you don't need to; and you're certainly not including the pronoun, it's kind of obvious that the word refers to whoever fell down.

Now. Imagine you're translating that "大丈夫" into English. A noob translator might translate it with "alright"… and it gets hella confusing — what is supposed to be alright? Or they might pick the context wrong, and translate it as "I'm alright" when it's supposed to be "are you alright?" or vice versa.

Except Japanese won't do this just with the pronoun, or the "hey, this is a question!" mark. It'll do it pretty much all the time — why two words, one enough?

See, there's stuff that's clearly wrong, like:

• Paraguayans drinking it too cold
• folks in northern Paraná drinking it too hot
• Argentinians roasting it too much, until it's brown
• Riograndenses milling it too thin

But canned yerba? That isn't just wrong, it's abomination! Refer to Dante's Inferno: the 8th circle is for the fraudsters who put cheese on garlic-and-oil pasta and ketchup on pizza, but the 9th one is for the ones who drink canned yerba! It's treason!!!1one

(I think it should be clear for anyone I'm joking with the fake outrage. Specially given I quite like tereré, i.e. Paraguayan style cold yerba. And unlike Che I'm not some boomer to tell others to stop enjoying what they enjoy. But seriously, I bet he'd be mad at the canned yerba. And most other things in the meme.)

Anyway, it isn't just about the caffeine content, it's all that nice ritual and the flavour and everything else.

It’s not just uncensored loli porn. It got censored in the LN from spy cam footage of his niece in the shower (the main reason why his brother gets so violent).

[Rudeus on Sylphy and Roxy]

The anime and WN are a bit more explicit on that, but even the LN is crystal clear on Rudeus being a paedophile. And I think the folks doing mental gymnastics to claim otherwise also lack basic media literacy, just like I criticised the "third way" ones.

In the meantime I find your "option 3.5" fairly reasonable. It's completely fine to criticise the work for not doing a good job of calling out shitty behaviour, specially in the light of its theme.

Rudeus does mention once that Paul (isekai father) is scum, and that's why they understand each other, but… that's it. In the meantime Paul cheats on Zenith (who's monogamous) with Lilia (who's employed by Paul, so Paul is in a position of power over her), and gets away with it.

I’ve also seen an interesting discussion about how much of the author’s personality is reflected in their works.

It's somewhat clear for me that Magonote doesn't really care too much about social causes, such as the role of women in society. And that he caves in to readers' pressure a bit too easily. But past that, I don't know, really.

Nina, why don't you help your dad with his work? Alexander can come too!

>canned yerba mate

What the bloody hell.

Ongoing, will keep watching because I'm having a great time with all three:

• Mairimashita! Iruma-kun 4
• Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken 4
• Re:Zero 4

Watched / finishing, top of the list:

• Jishou Akuyaku Reijou / Bertia
• Dr. Stone: Science Future 3
• Hime Kishi wa Barbaroi no Yome / The Barbarian's Bride

Finishing, I don't regret watching it:

• Isekai Nonbiri Nouka 2
• Higeki no Genkyou 2 / Pryde 2
• Jidou Hanbaiki 3 / Boxxo 3

Deserved a better adaptation:

• Honzuki no Gekokujou: Ryoushu no Youjo / Ascendance of a Bookworm 4
• Saikyou no Ousama 2 / The Beginning of the End 2

Dropped:

• Reincarnation no Kaben

This map is the gift that keeps giving:

• Obodo Oyibo Belfast, Polar Obodo Oyibo — Obodo oyibo is "white man land" in Igbo. See RL Niger and Nigeria.
• Big Wota — colonisers often picked some random word/expression the locals mention and assumed it was the name of the place. See RL Yucatán, probably from Maya ma'anaatik ka t'ann (I don't understand you)
• Baris, Rom, Nedelan, Phrans, Deutshland, Doisrikondre, Caucasia — Paris, Rome, Netherlands, France, Germany [Deutschland], Germany (again) Caucasus. It's all somewhere there anyway.
• Cabo Cinza — geographical feature + adjective. See RL Cabo Verde (Green Cape).
• Duckstan — it's basically "place of the ducks"; most of the time you see -(i)stan being associated with a local people but that isn't obligatory, see Persian ⟨گلستان⟩ (gulistān "rose garden"). See RL Lagoa dos Patos (Ducks Lagoon).
• Lithium Coast, Cheese Coast — after some local resource. See RL Argentina, Brazil, Ivory Coast
• Qhadafia — after some random political big shot. (From the colonising side, of course.) See: RL Philippines, Victoria
• Kemetic Ocean — Kemet is the old name of Egypt, both the pre-Roman kingdom and the region around the Nile. I think it's being modelled after the RL Atlantic Ocean vs. Atlas.

Surprised to not see any place being called "Big River" or "Day of Arafah Island".

not on special interest for etymology

[User banned from linguistics@mander.xyz]

actually it's entomology

[User banned from the whole mander.xyz instance]

Just kidding :-P

Etymology is kind of bait for me. Doubly so with what-if scenarios.

Yup, they are. Fixed — thanks for pointing it out. (I was in doubt on where to rank it, and accidentally split both names apart.)

IMO it's a series with a damn good worldbuilding, and it got some good animation; for me it was way more enjoyable than Higeki no Genkyou, surprisingly so because I like Pryde's story way better in the manga (The Barbarian's Bride gets a bit stale over time IMO). But at the same time I couldn't see myself being as excited with it than I was with Bertia.

For some time I used chatbots to give me ideas on how to translate specially tricky excerpts. It never reached the point of AI drafting stuff for me, but over time I relied on it more and more on it; I was rusting. And my translations were becoming rather bland, even ones supposed to have some emotional impact.

Glad I ditched it before it could become a problem.

The suffix -(i)s(e)tan in Classical Persian and descendants means roughly "place of $noun". While you see it often being attached to human groups, that isn't the only way to use it. Like,

• flower garden: ⟨بستان⟩ bostân = place of fragrance[s]
• hospital: ⟨بیمارستان⟩ bimârestân = place of [the] ill
• summer: ⟨تابستان⟩ tâbestân = place of heat
• rural district: ⟨دهستان⟩ dehestân = place of village[s]
• etc.

So you could theoretically name some place after the local fauna with -stan.

It helps if you remember that suffix is cognate to "stand", "status" (see status quo), "stay".

It could be too. It depends if the Qhadaf in question was the one founding it (like Cecil Rhodes), or simply some noble the discoverer was trying to please, while fighting the local tribals who were "refusing to be civilised". Either way, it's some name that feels completely out-of-place from Europe, much like all three we mentioned.

Ah, my bad; I don't know it either.

Scientifically accurate!

I wonder how many semanticists and biologists working together it took, to reach this conclusion.

General pattern seems to be:

• labial and/or velar continuant (approximant or fricative) or [h]
• open and/or rounded vowel
• labial and/or velar continuant or a close back rounded vowel

Exceptions are relatively easy to explain:

• What's being transliterated as Farsi "gh" is likely "غ". It's [ɢ]~[ɣ]. It is not an actual exception.
• Russian used to have a [ɣ] sound, but it got merged into /g/. (Note this explains why some older loanwords with /h/ get neared to /g/, [h] and [ɣ] sound somewhat similar.)
• Spanish gu- is [gʷ], a sound Romance languages often use as replacement for [w], after Latin [w] became [v]. Spanish did redevelop the sound but odds are the onomatopoeia is older.

The insult is probably older than English.

Cross-linguistically speaking, if something is seen as bad, you're bound to see people using it against things and people they dislike. Doubly so with the imperative or the volitive, as if expressing a wish; like, "may bad things happen to you".

So odds are "fuck you" and similar expressions (like, say, "fuck thee") are as old as the verb "to fuck" itself. And the verb has cognates all across the other Germanic languages; see German "ficken" to fuck¹, Swedish "focka" to copulate, Icelandic "fokka" to mess around, to rush². This shows the word is most likely present already in Proto-Germanic (500 BCE ~ 200 CE), so it predates English. (It's usually reconstructed as *fukkōną "to copulate, to assail".)

And odds are it was already vulgar for a long, long time. That's because it is barely attested in older times; even being such an old word, it's first attested in English in 1475, almost yesterday. This mismatch between being an old word vs. barely recorded shows it was something people would say but not write down³.

1. Perhaps not surprising you can use "fick dich" fuck you in German pretty much like you'd use it in English.
2. Icelandic "fokka" likely went through a semantic shift like "to copulate" → "to copulate promiscuously" → "to do things haphazardly" → "to mess around", "to rush". It's similar in spirit to the English expression "to fuck around".
3. You see the exact same mismatch with Latin "merda" shit. We know it's inherited from Proto-Indo-European *(s)merdh₂ "stench", and Romance speakers still use it all the time; and yet you barely see it being written down in Classical times, I think it's only attested from Martial (whose whole shtick was to be offensive).

The show was great. Faithful to the manga, in both events and spirit: it's a short story and not-too-deep story about love. I really enjoyed the ride.

Good catch. As I wrote the above I was thinking on the proto-World reconstructions, but perhaps Voynich solving is a more accurate fit.

I think it's both because I've seen people also dissing Ascendance of a Bookworm, simply for being an isekai. Even if its worldbuilding is extremely detailed and well-thought, like:

• magic being seen as a resource, and its ties to the class system
• poor and rich people having completely different mindsets
• Myne's mindset being alien to both, as an Earthling
• poor people being close-knit communities and suspicious of outsiders
• temples being basically an "out of sight, out of mind" bin for children
• "I have ties to that powerful person!" corruption
• the impact of tech over the social structure
• etc.

And it does those really well IMO.

That said, I do agree with you that Mushoku Tensei also puts people off because of the main character; probably more than for being an isekai. ::: spoiler Quotes of the prologue of the first LN, plus comments

I was a nice guy, but I was on the heavy side, didn’t have good looks going for me, and was in the midst of regretting my entire life.

My brash behavior around the house hadn’t won anyone over. I was the sort of guy who’d bang on the walls and floors to get people’s attention without leaving my room.

He's a "nice guy", hated by his looks. Sure. Totally not hated for his behaviour. /s

I’d only been homeless for about three hours. Before that, I’d been the classic, stereotypical, long time shut-in who wasn’t doing anything with his life. And then, all of a sudden, my parents died. Being the shut-in that I was, I obviously didn’t attend the funeral, or the family gathering thereafter.

Lives off his parents, can't be arsed to attend their funeral.

my older brother, the one with a black belt in karate

If his brother achieved something, it shows the issue is not simply "his family was bad".

What the hell had I even done wrong? All I did was skip out on our parents’ funeral so I could spank it to uncensored loli porn.

He is not just a paedophile: he's a paedophile NEET who gives no shit about his family and is completely nonchalant about it. ::: I'm quoting the LN but the anime does follow fashion.

At least for me it's clear why Mushoku Tensei does this: it goes out of its way to represent the main character's start as the rock bottom, because it helps to deliver the theme. MT's theme is *"persevere and try to become a better person, regardless of your failures; it pays off" — and if even scum like Rudeus can do it, the reader (who's likely better as a person than Rudeus, it's hard to not be) can do it too.

His attitude towards his family in the LN volume 12 (second half of the second season) shows that rather well IMO. In no moment the reader is told "Rudeus has changed! He is not the same as that Earthling, he's a better man!11one". But his actions show he cares about his isekai family in a way he never did about his Earthling one, and yet they feel natural because he has been becoming a better person over the course of the years. ::: spoiler Spoilers from LN volume 12 / s2 part 2

• Before: bashes floors/walls to communicate because he can't be arsed to speak with his Japanese parents
• After: loses an arm saving his isekai mother
• Before: busier masturbating than attending his JP parents' funeral
• After: pays respects to his isekai father's grave, telling it [the grave] he was an awful son, for doing far less than he did to his JP parents
• Before: shows clear disdain towards his Japanese siblings
• After: cares deeply about Aisha and Norn
• Before: NEET, completely irresponsible, cares only after his computer
• After: raising a family, not just a daughter but also his sisters :::

From that, you can go two ways, I think. The first one is to accept the MC is shit trying to become less shit, and enjoy the story and worldbuilding. The second one is to skip it; I don't blame anyone for doing it, if they want a more relatable main character, I think different people want different stuff and that's completely fine.

Additionally there's a third way: some people instead lie / bullshit / assume that the work defends NEET-dom, or paedophilia, or not caring about your parents. I think it's lack of basic media literacy.

Sorry for the wall of text!