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oh-boy-me · 4 years

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Idk if you’ve ever talked about it before, but how does Mammon speak in Japanese? In the translation, he speaks kinda rough and casual (maybe a bit of a southern USA flair? he uses y’all once or twice iirc) Does he have a particular accent or dialect in the OG text?

Oh, Mammon might be hard to break down, but I’ll see what I can do!

So I don’t think Mammon has any particular accent, per se? I think he’s just very informal.

From what I’ve noticed, Mammon’s speech is characterized by informal phrasing and some phonetic changes. I don’t think it goes into any actual ヤンキー (”delinquent youth”) territory, but I might be wrong as I don’t have any experience with that subculture. Regardless, it’s pretty rough, and very informal.

The following example sentences all come from the phone call where he cancels your plans (I think it’s intimacy 25?), his home screen dialogue, and the current Halloween event.

And this time more than any before, Japanese is not my first language and I have never lived in Japan, so if you find anything incorrect about the content below, please let me know so I can fix it.

---Informal Phrasing---

Japanese has lot of different ways to say the same thing with varying levels of politeness. Mammon tends to use (one of) the most direct ways of saying things.

It’s important to remember though that a lot of these “direct” things are characteristic of male speech in general, and I won’t go over those. Mammon says やつ (guy, basically) to refer to others sometimes, but so does Lucifer. Likewise, it’d be weirder if he didn’t use the dictionary verb form most of the time. There might be some that I describe even though they aren’t particularly unique to Mammon, because I’m not an expert on masc-coded Japanese.

悪い！！ (warui)

(Phone call) This literally means “bad,” but in this context it’s “my bad” or “sorry.” It’s a rough way to say it, rougher than ごめん (gomen), which I know Levi says off the top of my head, and すまない (sumanai), which I know Lucifer says.

If you need to apologize in Japanese, I think it’s best to stick to すみません (sumimasen) or ごめなさい (gomenasai) to avoid accidentally coming off as too rude or too stiff.

許せ！！ (yuruse)

(Phone call) This means “forgive me,” but like. As a command. A pretty demanding one at that. An example you’ve probably heard is when a man yells やめろ (yamero) to make someone stop what they’re doing.

その時は何があっても予定を空けろよ！ (sono ji wa nani ga attemo yotei wo akero yo)

(Phone call) Here’s the imperative again. 空けろ (akero) is the command form of 空ける (akeru), which here means to clear your schedule (予定 is schedule). The よ (yo) at the end softens the command a little. The sentence means “At that time, no matter what you’ve got going on, clear your schedule!”

A softer way to say it would be 空けて (akete), and even softer would be 空けてください (akete kudasai). I’m pretty sure Mammon isn’t the only character to use the imperative like this, but he’s certainly uses it a lot.

館中の掃除を言いつけてきやがって…… (yakatachuu no souji wo ii tsuketeki yagatte)

(Phone call) You can tag やがる (yagaru) onto a verb to show your contempt for someone’s actions. You hate that they did something. Like most of these, it’s pretty harsh. The sentence means “He had the nerve to order me to clean the house,” but with the strength of やがって, “He fucking ordered me to” might be closer in attitude.

近いうちにまた誘ってやるから (chikaiuchi ni mata sasotte yaru kara)

(Phone call) If you read the Levi post, you might remember that やる (yaru) is a more colloquial way to say “to do” than する (suru). It’s also a more colloquial way to say あげる (ageru), “to give.” It used to imply that the recipient was on equal or lower standing with you, but I don’t think that’s really the case anymore except for how it’s not really a polite phrasing. Attached to a verb, both あげる and やる imply a favor is being done. This means “I’ll invite you out again soon before long, so”

---Phonetic Shift---

In general, the most common phoneme shifts in Mammon’s lines are cutting the middle and monophthongization. Cutting the middle is a term I’m making up for the sake of this post and is exactly what it sounds like: lengthening the first syllable in place of the next ones. Monophthongization is when a vowel made of two sounds (diphthong) is pronounced as one sound (monophthong). In the case of rough Japanese that we’re working with, that usually means <ai> and <oi> turning into <ee>.

そのなんつーか…… (Sono nan tsuuka......)

(Phone call) つーか (tsuuka) is short for というか (to iu ka). You can see how “to iu” assimilates to “tsuu,” especially if you say というか a few times fast. なんつーか/何というか means “How should I put it?”

だぁっ！わーったよ！！ (Da-! waatta yo)

(A Devildom Halloween, 1-3) わーった (waatta) is from わかった (wakatta), which means “I get it.”

そりゃ傑作だぜ！ (sorya kessaku daze)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-16) そりゃ (sorya) is a shortened それは (sore wa), “that is.” Also, I’m not sure where else to put this, but ぜ (ze) is a very strong assertive particle that I don’t think many people actually use anymore irl. The line is “That’s a great joke!”

すっげースピードで鞭とんでくるんだけど！ (suggee supiido de muchi tondekurun dakedo)

(Phone call) Here we start the examples of monophthongization, which is probably the worst word you’ve had to read in a while but I promise is the easiest phonetic concept to understand here.

すっげー (suggee) comes from すっごい (suggoi), which means either amazing or terrible, depending on the context. Like I said before, <oi> often simplifies to <ee> (the second “e” is written either ー or え). The line means “The whip’s gonna come down real fast.” すっげー is emphasizing the speed.

By the way, やばい (yabai) also means amazing or terrible, based on context, and can be changed to やべー (yabee) in the same way. Mammon’s said that before too, but I don’t think it’s in my example pool.

あー…金降ってこねえかなー (Aa... kane futte konee kanaa)

(Home screen) This time, the negative こない (konai) turns into こねえ (konee), with the same <ai> --> <ee> shift. This time, it got written as ねえ instead of ねー. This is his “wish it’d rain money” line, and the translation is basically the same.

うるせぇ…… (urusee)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-13) うるせぇ is from うるさい (urusai), which means “shut up.” This time the second え is the smaller ぇ!

おっせえよ。俺を待たすんじゃねえ (ossee yo. ore wo matasunjanee)

(Home screen) We’ve got two here, with 遅い (osoi), late, turning into おっせえ (ossee), and 待たすな (matasu na) becoming 待たすんじゃねえ (matasunjanee). Putting んじゃない where a な would normally be makes it a rough-sounding command. And then the ない turned into ねえ like tends to happen with Mammon.

The line is “You’re late. Don’t keep me waiting.”

気安くさわんな！ (kiyasuku sawanna)

(Home screen, UR+ animation) This could possibly be in the first section too, idk, but. The general way to say “don’t touch me” is 触らないで (sawaranaide), and a more casual way to say it is 触るな (sawaru na). Mammon takes it a step further, and drops the る to say さわんな (sawanna). Levi uses the 触るな style, so I assume Mammon’s style is pretty noticeably informal.

他人の為に何か買ってヤンなきゃならねぇんだ！ (tanin no tame ni nanka katte yannakya naraneenda)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-13) やらなきゃならない (yaranakya naranai), is already a pretty casual way to say “have to.” Mammon’s version uses the same んな as the last line, turning やらなきゃ into ヤンなきゃ (yannakya). Also notice the switch from hiragana to katakana, which is often used to convey the conversational tone. And then ない once again becomes ねぇ! The line is “Why do I have to buy something for someone else?!”

And last but not least... そうだ、殿下。　言い忘れてた (souda, denka. ii wasureteta)

(A Devildom Halloween, 2-23) This line means, “that’s right, your highness. We forgot to say.” Why is this one last? Mammon says this line to Diavolo. From what I’ve seen it’s about the same level of politeness that Lucifer uses when talking to Diavolo.

It’s worth noting though that Lucifer and Mammon both speak casually to Diavolo.

So this isn’t organized at all, but I hope this gave you an idea of how Mammon’s idiolect ended up giving him a distinct one in the localization!

This is always a hot topic with Mammon’s portrayal as a POC character, so I need to say that I don’t know enough about Japanese subculture and language codes to say anything for sure about whether this makes him sound “uneducated.” Impolite, definitely, but “uneducated,” I don’t know. Regardless, the connotation definitely exists in how he’s written in English. And with that I’d like to remind everyone that your idiolect says nothing about your intelligence. Don’t judge a person’s worth by how many big words they use.

#obey me #obey me translation #obey me mammon

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