# "Godzilla" in Arabic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 22, 2005, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056 "2005-08-22T01:55:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/1 "2005-08-22T01:55:06Z")
This is one of the few places in the world where I can ask the following question. That is…have any of the Godzilla movies been officially translated into Arabic (either dubs or subs, but dubs especially)? And, if so, how is his name pronounced or transliterated? (I mean, we get “Godzilla” from “Gojira,” and I have no idea how well either of those words could carry over into Arabic) So…can anyone help me out? (Well, I’m pretty sure I’m beyond “help,” but you know what I mean.) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/2 "2005-08-22T05:54:29Z")
“Ariel Sharon.” ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/3 "2005-08-22T14:13:13Z")
Allahzilla? ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/4 "2005-08-22T14:58:04Z")
“Godzilla” is anglicized from “Gojiro” which means “bull whale” :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/5 "2005-08-22T15:45:43Z")
> [@](#): > > “Godzilla” is anglicized from “Gojiro” which means “bull whale” I’d heard that “Gojira” was the nickname of a gaffer or something at Toho. It recalls “whale” (which is “kujira”), but I never heard that “gojira” is “bull whale”. The explanation Forrest J,. Ackerman’s FMOF gave was that “go-” came from “gorilla”, so that “gojira” is something like “gorilla-whale”. I’ve never heard a ggod reason why “gojira” became “Godzilla”. It’s certainly not an obvious or inevitable anglicization. Who knows what “gojira” would become in Arabic. Something easier to pronounce in that language, and mellifluous to their tongue. But he;d probably destroy Tokyo from _right_ to _left_. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/6 "2005-08-22T22:05:54Z")
[QUOTE=CalI’ve never heard a ggod reason why “gojira” became “Godzilla”. It’s certainly not an obvious or inevitable anglicization.[/QUOTE] Probably for about the same reasons we got anime characters named “Rally Vincent” and “Rick Hunter.” ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2005, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/7 "2005-08-22T22:21:40Z")
Make clearing throat noise "HAAAAADDZilla ! ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2005, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/8 "2005-08-23T04:00:47Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I’ve never heard a ggod reason why “gojira” became “Godzilla”. It’s certainly not an obvious or inevitable anglicization. Eh… if you say it in the really Japanese way, Goh-gee-r/la, and remember that the people who were hearing it first had no idea what it was supposed to mean - I can see where it came from. What _I_ don’t understand is how you call a giant firebreathing lizard “gorilla whale.” ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2005, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/9 "2005-08-23T04:25:26Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I’d heard that “Gojira” was the nickname of a gaffer or something at Toho. It recalls “whale” (which is “kujira”), but I never heard that “gojira” is “bull whale”. The explanation Forrest J,. Ackerman’s FMOF gave was that “go-” came from “gorilla”, so that “gojira” is something like “gorilla-whale”. > > I’ve never heard a ggod reason why “gojira” became “Godzilla”. It’s certainly not an obvious or inevitable anglicization. Who knows what “gojira” would become in Arabic. Something easier to pronounce in that language, and mellifluous to their tongue. > But he;d probably destroy Tokyo from _right_ to _left_. [http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:TCBkMZZqz4sJ:www.hollywoodjesus.com/comments\_39.htm+godzilla+AND+"bull+whale"&hl=en](http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:TCBkMZZqz4sJ:www.hollywoodjesus.com/comments_39.htm+godzilla+AND+%22bull+whale%22&hl=en) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2005, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/10 "2005-08-23T12:15:27Z")
**Enola** – It’s good that this guy thinks that “Gojira” means “Bull Whale”, but he doesn’t seem to be supporting it with anything, and it’s not clear that he even knows Japanese. As for “Gojira” becoming “Godzilla”, I want to note that there’s absolutely no reason for the change in name. Most Japanese monmster names get reproduced in the English versions exactly the same as, or only slightly changed (“Rodan” = “radon”. “Mosura” goes to “Mothra”, which I can completely understand, since it explicitly puts that “Moth” in it. “Barugon” = “Barugon”, and so on.) But “Gojira” is not cacvophonous, and contains nothing difficult for the Western tongue, and doesbn’t sound like anything else that would prompt the change. So why the “j” to “dz” and “r” to “ll”. It almost looks like a parody of the stereotypes for language change. English speakers always have it that Japanese “can’t” pronounced the letter “l” and substitute “r”, so we’ll take a Japanese name with “r” and change it to “l” for the English-speakers. Only it doesn’t work that way, so why change “Gojira” to “Godzilla”? ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2005, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/11 "2005-08-23T12:36:06Z")
Well, in that case, we could always fall back upon the bastardized '98 version of Godzilla where the newscaster reports on the survivor of a japanese fishing boat attacked by a giant lizard. What was it? “_Gojiro_” comes the reply in a thick japanese accent. “Well there you have it…GODZILLA!” announced the smug newscaster. The love-interest, watching tv, shouts out"DUH…Its GO-JEE-RO" ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2005, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/12 "2005-08-23T15:53:33Z")
According to the IMDB trivia page, Gojira was actually named after an apparently rather heavyset Toho employee, who had previously been given the nickname. So _he_ would have been the original “gorilla whale.” Now, not working at Toho 50 years ago, I can’t attest that that is true. However, if it is, Godzilla/Gojira was actually named after an employee, not directly from “gorilla whale.” I seem to recall Robert Boyle hosting a Godzilla marathon some years ago, and he said that was a combination of “gorilla” (Japanese “gorirra,” or something like that” and another Japanese word meaning “monster,” sounding, as I try to remember, similar to “kujira.” Does “kujira” also have a non-cetacean monstrous connotation, or is there a similar word? And, as to the OP, either “Godzilla” or “Gojira” would translate fairly easily into Arabic with little change–maybe the vowels, but the consonants would be pretty straightforward. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2005, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/13 "2005-08-23T16:24:12Z")
> [@](#): > > According to the IMDB trivia page, Gojira was actually named after an apparently rather heavyset Toho employee, who had previously been given the nickname. So he would have been the original “gorilla whale.” Now, not working at Toho 50 years ago, I can’t attest that that is true. However, if it is, Godzilla/Gojira was actually named after an employee, not directly from “gorilla whale See my first post: > [@](#): > > I’d heard that “Gojira” was the nickname of a gaffer or something at Toho. It recalls “whale” (which is “kujira”), but I never heard that “gojira” is “bull whale”. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2005, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/14 "2005-08-23T23:25:13Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > So why the “j” to “dz” and “r” to “ll”. It almost looks like a parody of the stereotypes for language change. English speakers always have it that Japanese “can’t” pronounced the letter “l” and substitute “r”, so we’ll take a Japanese name with “r” and change it to “l” for the English-speakers. Only it doesn’t work that way, so why change “Gojira” to “Godzilla”? Hmm…maybe because it ported to the U.S. in 1956, in what was already a dubbed version that had an American actor spliced in as a major character? I’d guess that the name just “sounded too Japanese” for the marketing guys to be comfortable with, so they changed the name to something that sounded slightly more “western.” (Hell, we’re probably just lucky he didn’t end up being called “Atomisaurus” or something. Of course, that might have been the saving grace of the dub—if a new name had two many syllables, it’d be hard to dub in convincingly over the existing footage.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2005, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/15 "2005-08-23T23:31:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Hmm…maybe because it ported to the U.S. in 1956, in what was already a dubbed version that had an American actor spliced in as a major character? I’d guess that the name just “sounded too Japanese” for the marketing guys to be comfortable with, so they changed the name to something that sounded slightly more “western.” (Hell, we’re probably just lucky he didn’t end up being called “Atomisaurus” or something. Of course, that might have been the saving grace of the dub—if a new name had two many syllables, it’d be hard to dub in convincingly over the existing footage.) They _did_ do this with the second movie. Originally they planned to shoot extra scenes (as ith the scenes with Raymond Burr in **Godzilla** ), but they ended up just dubbing it. They changed the name of the monster (and the movie) to **Gigantis, the Fire Monster**. At the end, a very toothy Godzilla/Gigantis gets buried in ice. If you’ll recall, that’s where they found him for **King Kong vs. Godzilla** , so they kept continuity. Gigantis came out on VHS as **Godzilla Raids Again** , for which someone should be shot. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/16 "2005-08-24T01:32:22Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > They _did_ do this with the second movie. Originally they planned to shoot extra scenes (as ith the scenes with Raymond Burr in **Godzilla** ), but they ended up just dubbing it. They changed the name of the monster (and the movie) to **Gigantis, the Fire Monster**. Indeed, and I’m as glad as the next guy that the name didn’t take. (Wikipedia says the reasons for the name change are “unknown.” Which could be anything from marketing reasons to copyright issues to a typo at the poster factory, for all we know.) Better the Eliis Island version of “Gojira,” if nothing else. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/17 "2005-08-24T07:25:40Z")
Anyway, I justed asked an Egyptian colleague of mine this question. As far as he knows, Godzilla = Godzilla. He’s checking up with his teenaged son tonight. It’s hardly surprising. How many Japanese-Arabic translators are there working in the film business? ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/18 "2005-08-24T07:26:51Z")
justed = just :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Atticus\_Finch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ec9cab/32.png) [@Atticus\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atticus_Finch)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/19 "2005-08-24T12:03:44Z")
Only some Arabs (especially Egyptians) use the hard “g” at the start of Godzilla, the rest pronouncing the same Arabic letter tend to use more of a soft “g” or “j” sound. So “Godzilla” or “Gojira” might sound a little odd to most Arabs, either obviously foreign or strongly Egyptian. There isn’t really an equivalent of the “oh” sound either, in most Arabic dialects. The closest they come is more of a “u” or “ooh” sound. So if you were transliterating “Godzilla” and “Gojira”, maybe the closest you could come is “joodzilla” or “jujira”… ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2005, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godzilla-in-arabic/318056/20 "2005-08-24T12:09:13Z")
What’s wrong with sounding odd. The big G (or J) is a 100 ft high radioactive dinosaur intent on destroying Tokyo. Sounds pretty odd already. 😉