"Carl Sadakichi Hartmann, son of Oscar Hartmann of Hamburg and Osada Hartmann of Nagasaki, was born around 1869* on the small island of Dejima, the only slice of soil in Nagasaki where foreigners were welcome. Before the Meiji Restoration, Japan was still, for the most part, closed to the West and to Westerners. Women of the merchant class were allowed to work on the island, some taking positions with foreign officials, first as servants and often later as mistresses. One of these women was Osada, Sadakichi’s mother, who married Oscar Hartmann, a German official, and quickly had two sons."

Sadakichi Hartmann, as he was later known through most of his life only spent a year in Japan, leaving after his mother, Osada, died and spent the next 12 years of his life in Germany, moving to America in 1882. He was later know as an artist, writer and dancer, among other accomplishments. He ended up living on an Indian Reservation near where I now live and died in 1944. He was known personally to the likes of Walt Whitman and John Barrymore.

To the Japanese speakers in this forum, I have a question...

How would his name have likely been pronounced:

Sadak-ichi...?

Sada-kichi...?

or...?

I ask as a historian for this latter area.

Thank you...

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Every sound in Japanese is a syllable consisting of one vowel and maybe one consonant at the beginning - the only exception is n, which can appear alone. There is some complex stuff about rise and fall in words, which I won't go into, but there is no stress in Japanese, so every syllable is weighted equally (also a little more complicated in reality but that's basically how it works).

His name should be said as Sa-da-ki-chi. Try to make each syllable as equal as you can.

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Yes, the equal weighting of emphasis on syllables is something I discovered when watching Whisper of the Heart. Westerners pronounce the main characters name as "Shi-zuku" with two pronounced syllables, or even "Shi-zoo-koo" with three. I've even heard some people say the rather silly sound "Shee-zoo-koo". But listen to it as spoken by the Japanese voice actors.

It's only 1 syllable all of equal emphasis and I can only write it down phonetically as "Shzku" or "Shzkh".

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Isakaya High School Roleplaying Info

"An old man like me stands no chance fighting against a high school girl in her underwear" - Oshino Meme, Nekomonogatari (Kuro)

Thank you guys... I went to a talk about the guys tonight at a history society meeting and because of a change in venue ending up with us in a small office, the speaker backed out for a larger space later on, maybe next month. I totally understood his reasoning. He had sent us an email before the meeting, but I hadn't looked at my email before I had left. I know the speaker personally and, as I said I agree with him, but what we were given in his place was nothing, IMHO...

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