Proper Nasuverse terminology

[SteelBeowulf]

So we are talking about 魔法 and 魔術! Yas!

I firmly hold the 魔術 be translated to Magecraft and 魔法 to Magic.

The thing is that between 魔術 and 魔法 are interchangeable, except in Nasuverse it is not the case, as Nasu had made actual lore in the distinction between the two.

Let's talk about 術 and 法.

The two words have different in terms of connotation and context.

術 is the word used mostly with artificial things like art or techniques:

武術 Wushu -- Bujutsu -- Martial Art

忍術 Renshu -- Ninjutsu -- Ninja Art?

剣術 Jianshu -- Kenjutsu -- Sword Art / Swordmanship

医術 Yishu -- Ijutsu -- Art of healing / medical skill

basically 術 gives the impression of something man-made not bound to nature or reality thus translating it to -craft is very appropriate to me

Then there is 法 which gives off a more fantastical connotation:

法 is associated with "Law" while the Chinese and Japanese both use it as man-made laws, 法 in some context (by context I meant novels or religious/mythical text) are used in religious or mythological ways more like "Laws from the divine/fantastical"

法王 -- "King of Dharma" "King of Law" Basically "Buddhist Pope" (The "Law" here is something more like law associated with nature bestow by the divine)

法力 -- Magic power/Dharma Power --There were branches of Buddhism/Hinduism who believes their training would give them super-powers case in point when Buddha fought Mara

Of course when 法 is used with 魔 (Magical/Demonic):

魔法 literal translation: "Demonic Laws"

So just calling 魔法 Magic makes a lot of sense in both contextual, literal, and lore way

So basically Solomon should have been called "King of Magecraft"

[Comun]

Where was sorcery used as 妖術's furigana the first time?

Shimousa.

[Ronove]

So basically Solomon should have been called "King of Magecraft"

Should have been? Can't speak much of the language but hasn't this always been the case? Solomon's title is pronounced "Majutsu-O". I know enough for "jutsu" to mean "technique/arts" and "ma" to refer to demonic or magic, so king of magecraft checks out. King of "magic" would have sounded differently, wouldn't it?

[AAM1232]

Castor used "King of Magic" in Solomon's mats for Evocation and in the Character section.

Evocation: EX
Magic that evokes of spiritual bodies of the past, or perhaps the future.
With his Evocation ability that spoke of the summoned spiritual existences, the "Seventy Two Demon Gods", and established them as capable familiars, he truly lived up to his title of King of Magic.

Due to Roman himself is reflecting on that weakness of his, it only needs a few words, for someone in his surroundings to simply says "hang in there", for him to somehow holds his ground and displays a resolution worthy of the King of Magic.

As for FGO NA, they use "King of Mages".

Dr. Roman
You said you had no need of the name “King of Mages” anymore. I'll take it back, then.


Solomon
I am Solomon, King of Mages.

Goetia, it is I who shall read you your last rites.

[Deathhappens]

True Magic may have risen in use as the most clear-cut term to oppose whatever 魔術 was called at any given time, though I have vague memories of mirrormoon once using it in FSN.


It represents more than 15 years of fandom activity, I'd say it's good enough that certain naming conventions stuck and things didn't get extensively Coked up. Like others said, terminology becomes mostly intuitive after reading the source material and participating in a few discussions. It's also less important in actual fandom interaction than it might seem when first trying to get into TM and its setting.

(It's often seen as gatekeeping but if someone wants to get into the nitty-gritty of how TM works rather than just reading/watching it as a fun weeb game/novel/anime the best way really is to start out very confused about everything and then reading up until they're only slightly confused about some things)

The best state to be is about 25% curious and 75% apathetic. Adjust to your preference.

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For what my paltry 3 cents are worth, Magecraft for Majutsu (as the craft, the art, the collection of tricks, techniques and shortcuts to coax the world to behave as you want it to) and Magic for Mahou (the make-believe, daytime cartoon, first synthetic of Mahou Shoujo fairy tale magic that just Does Things) sound about right. Good point on true Magic vs True Magic earlier, too.

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So we are talking about 魔法 and 魔術! Yas!

I firmly hold the 魔術 be translated to Magecraft and 魔法 to Magic.

The thing is that between 魔術 and 魔法 are interchangeable, except in Nasuverse it is not the case, as Nasu had made actual lore in the distinction between the two.

Let's talk about 術 and 法.

The two words have different in terms of connotation and context.

術 is the word used mostly with artificial things like art or techniques:

武術 Wushu -- Bujutsu -- Martial Art

忍術 Renshu -- Ninjutsu -- Ninja Art?

剣術 Jianshu -- Kenjutsu -- Sword Art / Swordmanship

医術 Yishu -- Ijutsu -- Art of healing / medical skill

basically 術 gives the impression of something man-made not bound to nature or reality thus translating it to -craft is very appropriate to me

Then there is 法 which gives off a more fantastical connotation:

法 is associated with "Law" while the Chinese and Japanese both use it as man-made laws, 法 in some context (by context I meant novels or religious/mythical text) are used in religious or mythological ways more like "Laws from the divine/fantastical"

法王 -- "King of Dharma" "King of Law" Basically "Buddhist Pope" (The "Law" here is something more like law associated with nature bestow by the divine)

法力 -- Magic power/Dharma Power --There were branches of Buddhism/Hinduism who believes their training would give them super-powers case in point when Buddha fought Mara

Of course when 法 is used with 魔 (Magical/Demonic):

魔法 literal translation: "Demonic Laws"

So just calling 魔法 Magic makes a lot of sense in both contextual, literal, and lore way

So basically Solomon should have been called "King of Magecraft"

CMIIW, but similar titles have always been translated as King of the People, not the abstract concept. Thus Gilgamesh is the King of Heroes (because he's the first one) not Heroism in general. Alexander of Conquerors, Artoria of Knights, Edison of Inventors and so on and so forth.

[Clyton]

The best state to be is about 25% curious and 75% apathetic. Adjust to your preference.

- - - Updated - - -

For what my paltry 3 cents are worth, Magecraft for Majutsu (as the craft, the art, the collection of tricks, techniques and shortcuts to coax the world to behave as you want it to) and Magic for Mahou (the make-believe, daytime cartoon, first synthetic of Mahou Shoujo fairy tale magic that just Does Things) sound about right. Good point on true Magic vs True Magic earlier, too.

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CMIIW, but similar titles have always been translated as King of the People, not the abstract concept. Thus Gilgamesh is tge5 King of Heroes (because he's the first one) not Heroism in general. Alexander of Conquerors, Artoria of Knights, Edison of Inventors and so on and so forth.

Regarding king titles, that depends on the context really. LAlter and Drake's King of the Storm, Romulus' King of Nation-Founding, and a few others, deals with the King over a concept. For Iskandar, the JP text specificailly uses conquest as a verb rather than as a noun (a king who conquers, rather than a king of conquerors, as seen in Gilgamesh's King of Heroes CCC matrix entry; compare that to Gil's and Artoria's own titles in that very same entry where they specifically use the nouns "heroes" and "knights" in JP respectively). So I agree with castor's version when he translated Iskandar's FGO mats that King of Conquest/Conquest King is more apt.

Regarding Solomon's, it's the same case. It uses "majutsu", not "majutsushi", so King of Magecraft/King of Magic would be more appropriate. I think King of Magic is used by people is because it goes back to the modern vs ancient connotations when reading the word. E.g. everytime 結界 came up, Bounded Field is the modern connotation, Barrier is the ancient connotation, and Barrier is used more often in the context of NP classifications (Classification: Barrier Noble Phantasm, instead of, Classification: Bounded Field Noble Phantasm).

I'm just being odd here IMO since this is kind of hard for me to explain properly, but King of Magic is fine in my perspective. If I view it with context that this title is attributed to the figure known as Solomon and his significance in magic history, then I can tell that the word 'magic' in the title is dealing with [ancient] magecraft, not Magic, just because ancient magecraft and Magic is more closely tied together than say, modern magecraft to ancient magecraft or modern magecraft to Magic, and that because of it, it's alright for me to confuse ancient magecraft with Magic because of their close connection to each other.

[fumei]

So basically Solomon should have been called "King of Magecraft"

Alright, so this is something I brought up in relation to mahoyo as well, but let's go over it again.

In this case, being entirely accurate with the terms, you should also have "magecraft circuits", "magecraft crest", "magecraft resistance", and so on. Of course like Clyton said you can bypass some of these because "magic" could just be "magical", as in "magical resistance" or like how it already is with "magical energy" etc. But your circuits, crest, and all that first and foremost relate to your usage of magecraft, so why aren't those terms consistent? Should we go back and change all those terms to align with "magecraft" instead of the other way around? Because in my opinion, those all sound dumb, and I would much rather just have the "common usage" one be called "magic".

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E.g. everytime 結界 came up, Bounded Field is the modern connotation, Barrier is the ancient connotation, and Barrier is used more often in the context of NP classifications (Classification: Barrier Noble Phantasm, instead of, Classification: Bounded Field Noble Phantasm).

Is it?

[Clyton]

I don't know, it's just what I observed from some translations lol. In my opinion, I feel Bounded Field is rather more of the magic terminology, so it would feel weird if I use it in 結界宝具 such as Moles Necessarie or Crystal Palace when the users aren't mages themselves. It would feel out of place to me, hence I stick to Barrier to keep it simple for various contexts (also, Barrier is more digestable to the D&D and RPG people, but if I go into detail of an ability's explanation, then I can feel ok using Bounded Field in the ability's descriptions since it's like having the readers/RPers get into Nasuverse mechanics specifically).

[Leftovers]

Alright, so this is something I brought up in relation to mahoyo as well, but let's go over it again.

In this case, being entirely accurate with the terms, you should also have "magecraft circuits", "magecraft crest", "magecraft resistance", and so on. Of course like Clyton said you can bypass some of these because "magic" could just be "magical", as in "magical resistance" or like how it already is with "magical energy" etc. But your circuits, crest, and all that first and foremost relate to your usage of magecraft, so why aren't those terms consistent? Should we go back and change all those terms to align with "magecraft" instead of the other way around? Because in my opinion, those all sound dumb, and I would much rather just have the "common usage" one be called "magic".

Not quite, considering magecraft is used specifically to denote the field of systematic study and practice, not every single apparatus related to supernatural phenomena. The word "magic" can very well hold its plain dictionary meaning in any context, and if a concern about clarity exists it naturally pertains to the rendition of 魔法. Personal preferences aside, that is.

[Comun]

But your circuits, crest, and all that first and foremost relate to your usage of magecraft, so why aren't those terms consistent? Should we go back and change all those terms to align with "magecraft" instead of the other way around?

I think we should just trust all readers to be able to tell the difference between magic the noun and magic the adjective.

Also who came up with 結界 with Bounded Field anyways? I use it because the term is established since forever, but it honestly feels like translating 矛盾 as Halberd Shield or 馬鹿 as Horse Deer.

[Mementore]

I think we should just trust all readers to be able to tell the difference between magic the noun and magic the adjective.

Also who came up with 結界 with Bounded Field anyways? I use it because the term is established since forever, but it honestly feels like translating 矛盾 as Halberd Shield or 馬鹿 as Horse Deer.

I'm curious, how would you translate 結界?

[Dullahan]

'temenos', 'Abgrenzung'

in all honesty bounded field is pretty good. anything else would require leaning on the original (buddhist, sanskrit by way of chinese) etymology - and who wants to do that? not me haha

[Comun]

I'm curious, how would you translate 結界?

Just "barrier" like every otehr anime and videogame translation does.

[yokushi]

I just noticed that Himuten Material uses "magecraft" too. That's a JP official source I guess?

[SteelBeowulf]

Alright, so this is something I brought up in relation to mahoyo as well, but let's go over it again.
In this case, being entirely accurate with the terms, you should also have "magecraft circuits", "magecraft crest", "magecraft resistance", and so on. Of course like Clyton said you can bypass some of these because "magic" could just be "magical", as in "magical resistance" or like how it already is with "magical energy" etc. But your circuits, crest, and all that first and foremost relate to your usage of magecraft, so why aren't those terms consistent? Should we go back and change all those terms to align with "magecraft" instead of the other way around? Because in my opinion, those all sound dumb, and I would much rather just have the "common usage" one be called "magic".

I think we should keep "magic circuits", "magic crest", but refer Majutsu to magecraft and Mahou to magic when they are mentioned as a singular terms. Basically my idea is by the time a fan gets to the concept of magic circuits and magic crest, they should understand the difference between magic and magecraft.

Also because magecraft circuits sounds terrible and not cool

Also fun idea, how about we do it the Shiki way?

Shiki and SHIKI

magic (Majutsu) and MAGIC (Mahou)

dumb idea but fun

[the god of world-0]

Can't wait until 「Magic」 is introduced