Quote:
Originally Posted by Anacone
I should have seen this coming  ...Yes, it does mean that in "spoken language"... I don't know how widely it's used in here, though, haven't heard it while... In kaannos.com "horo" is translated as "skanky"... |
And I've discovered that it apparently means "wolf" in the ancient Ainu tongue of Japan (i've only found one reference in an IMDB review though... still seeking solid confirmation) -- (see my previous post on it)
Sometimes in linguistics, just because something *sounds* like a word in another language - doesn't mean anything.
And in contradiction to romaji spelling rules, one of the Mediaworks image designers spelled it "Holo" and there's an ongoing Wiki dispute about whether its "Horo" or "Holo" (even though, again, "lo" isn't one of the romaji choices)
I'm betting the author used the Ainu word (Ainu being subversively cool and a bit anti-establishment to the Official Reality in Japan
).
edit: Here's an interesting bit I found ---
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Meiji Modernization, Scientific Agriculture, and the Destruction of Japan's Hokkaido Wolf
For regional variations on this Ainu creation myth, see Sarashina Genzo and Sarashina Ko, Kotan seibutsuki: Yaju-kaiu-gyozoku hen (A biological chronicle of Ainu villages: Volume on terrestrial animals, marine mammals, and fishes) (Tokyo: Hosei Daigaku Shuppankyoku, 1976), 2: 291-92. An English version of this story can be found in Carl Etter, Ainu Folklore: Traditions and Culture of the Vanishing Aborigines of Japan (Chicago: Wilcox & Follett Co., 1949), 20-21. Interestingly, John Batchelor rejected this origin myth, saying that it was not a traditional Ainu tale. Some critics of the Japanese settlement of Hokkaido claimed that, because the female wife of the wolf god was often depicted or described as a Japanese court lady, that Japanese trumped up the story to place Ainu in a subordinate position to themselves, as children of the Japanese.
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That fits right in with her "Edo courtesan" dialect choice
and the wolf was the protective guardian spirit of the Ainu.
These two Ainu legends may also be of interest:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/safl/safl10.htm (THE LEGEND OF HOW THE YOUNGER SISTER OF THE WOLF-GOD WAS GIVEN TO ME (
to wife.))
http://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/safl/safl08.htm (THE LEGEND OF THE LADY OF KUNNEPET. A LEGEND OF LOVE AND WAR.)