The book covers many invented words, based on many languages. Modern English is full of loan words, or anglicised words from a foreign root. Why do you get upset when the word is invented from Japanese? I didn't think words deriving fom "oriental" like "orientalist" were in vogue.
Because in japanese the new word makes no sense. If you’re borrowing or creating new words, it would be nice if they would somewhat sensible and not just be the typical “wow japanese is so mystic language”.
There's no reason to believe this is just another case of "wow Japanese is so mystic". Lately, I'm seeing more and more people with a sort of imagined or conjured offense that someone is unduly appreciating a culture. I don't really get it.
It seems roughly analogous to wasei-eigo[1], Japanese terms derived from English words that may not match up with how you'd typically form words or use them in English. Examples include cosplay, from cos(tume) play, and pasokon (PC), from perso(nal) com(puter).
> In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world.
GGP is not using a slur, they're suggesting that this is an inappropriate use of Japanese culture as an aesthetic by a Western writer. Reducing a culture to an aesthetic is harmful because it essentializes and stereotypes a culture and those in it.
(I don't know if I agree about this particular example or not, I'm still pondering; only explaining.)
I think the reaction is stronger when borrowing the foreign bits just feel like "cheating".
If they were borrowing words with meanings that are specific to that language are hard to convey in other languages it would make more sense. Here the new word is basically "me-leftover"; it feels exactly the same in Japanese than when spelled out in English, so either the author could accept the cheesiness in English and run with it, or choose a better fitting word in a different language that actually brings nuance to the thought.
Just borrowing another word to make it look mystical isn't wrong or forbidden, it just feels lazy and a waste of good words. Also we're in a connected world, and there's enough people speaking multiple language that "exotic" words have a way lower chance to be actually exotic anymore.
Sure, the word here is presumably meant to be a portmanteau of "watashi" (私 I, me) plus "ashiato" (足跡 footprint). The ~ato suffix refers to the remains or evidence of something no longer present (e.g. the site where a castle used to be), so the word could also be read as "watashi" (me) + "ato" (evidence left behind).
Either way, basically it's a pun. Not the world's most amazing pun, but it's not gibberish like several commenters have suggested.
I don't think anybody's called it out and out gibberish, just awkward and unnatural because The reading watashi for 私 is rarely if ever used in compounds.
If I was asked to invent the word I'd read the same characters as shiseki (私跡), or go with something like 自跡 jiseki "self-tracks". Although even that sounds more like "ruin of self" than what the author is trying to convey.
Hmm, I don't agree at all on the reading - for an ad-hoc coinage, ～跡 is realistically always going to be ~ato. Like if you jokingly referred to a paw print as 犬跡, saying inuato would be clear to any listener, and saying kenseki definitely wouldn't.
But more to the point, the person I originally replied suggested that the coinage in TFA just used Japanese to sound exotic, so that's what I was replying to. It may or not be great wordplay, but it's certainly Japanese wordplay.
