On Fri, 01 Nov 2002 10:48:05 -0500
"J Liu" <nhojuil@hotmail.com> wrote:
Anyway, here's the whole point - the name of this island nation is...
Sao Tome (not sure what it literally means). Obviously, there are
possibilities for a Ranma fanfic here!
It means Saint Thomas, and the pronunciation is entirely different from
Saotome :). It would take a lot of acrobatics to convince your readers (or
me, at least) that the two are even remotely related :).
Thanks for the definition! I am aware that the pronunciations would be
completely different. It's really just a coincidence of anglicization of
the Japanese name and stripping accent marks from the portuguese. But I'm
not suggesting the island was named after this saotome ancestor...the
Portuguese colonized Sao Tome long before they went to Japan. That doesn't
mean that some Portuguese fellow wouldn't anglicize Saotome and note the
funny coincidence. Maybe the ancestor rescues the King of Portugal, who had
a sense of humour and rewarded him with this island that is strangely
similar. Who knows? Fanfiction has "fiction" in it, don't forget :P.
I envision it more as someone in the Ranma cast noticing the "similarity",
and events leading to one of those vacation trips where they go back 500
years in the past, or something like that :)