I will be the first to admit that my Japanese really sucks. So after getting really annoyed with some disclaimers I've seen recently on some fics, I asked my friend to clear up the debate on which romanization (taiyoukai or daiyoukai) is proper. She is getting a PhD in Japanese from an Ivy League university.

I tried to include the Japanese characters into the body of the text, but I kept getting a phpBB error, so I guess this board is not equipped to handle non-roman characters, sorry.

The Response:
Many characters have multiple Sino-Japanese readings, and the character for "great" is one of them: it can be read either "dai" or "tai." (Incidentally, the native Japanese reading is "oo," while the modern Mandarin reading is "dà.") So one could quite conceivably read ["insert Japanese that phpBB cannot read" here!] as either "taiyoukai" or "daiyoukai".

However, I don't see how "taiyoukai" would work out to "fish demon." The word for sea bream is "tai," written with an entirely different character - but that's the native Japanese reading of the character, whereas "youkai" is the Sino-Japanese reading, and you generally don't mix the two types of reading in a single word. Moreover, "sea bream" is a pretty obscure word, and it doesn't seem like a connection that anyone would be likely to make.

However, my perusal of the Japanese internets tells me that "daiyoukai" is the correct reading, at least in a non-Inuyasha context. (It's just barely possible that there's a different pronunciation in the Inuyasha universe; mangaka do love to pull that sort of crap.) I don't think it has anything to do with avoiding fishy homophones; that's just the way that particular character happens to be read in that particular compound. With dai/tai, it's pretty much a 50-50 toss-up, although my sense is that "dai" might be a bit more common.


So the next person who puts a message about how it's DAIYOUKAI because they don't want Sesshoumaru confused with fish demons is going to get my boot up their rear. DO NOT MAKE DEFINITIVE LINGUISTIC STATEMENTS IF YOU'RE NOT FLUENT!!! [/rant]

There's already been a couple threads about this.

this Kanji is known as oh. Dai, tai and a few more are the other pronouncations you can use depending. But when reading the Kanji SOLO/ by itself (with no other kanji) it is read as oh or dai ONLY.

The pronouncation of tai using just the kanji (no compound word) has no meaning at all. The kanji is read as tai only if it is a compound word, and that is also depending.

Taiyoukai wouldnt mean fish at all if youre using this kanji ... but the pronounciation tai here HAS NO MEANING as a solo kanji, so it means nothing at all.

In compound words... it just depends on the word and context of the sentence. Japanese people learn which way to pronounce it as they learn the compound words.


<-- Dai Youkai.

Youkai (the last 2 Kanji) is already a compound word. The Dai, is acting as an adjective. So it is read by itself. Hence Dai youkai.

You could possibly read it as Ohyoukai/Oyoukai. ( but seriously please dont lol )
The kanji means big; large, but if you want to give off the connotation of something massive or of great power (as in the manga)... Dai is the pronounciation youre shooting for. Since for dai, it also includes the definition great, where as Oh doesnt.

Dai means big; large; Great; loud.
Youkai means ghost; apparition; phantom; spectre; specter; demon; monster; goblin

I know this thread is like years old, but I was curious to see why/how people chose daiyoukai or taiyoukai and so I, naturally, googled it. First link was this thread

So basically I just wanted to thank you, sirinya, for the clarification. It would be so cool to learn Japanese kanji

P.S. Personally, I've always used "daiyoukai" just because that's what I heard in the japanese anime.

Hello! Can't help laugh at your rant! Unfortunately, budding writer's like me tend to become OC about these things, perhaps you understand. I've tried researching this and i came up with VERY different meanings and words. It's so frustrating! I really don't wanna mangle the meaning or proper usage of honorifics or titles. Thanks for your info!

I also wanted to say thank you. I'm trying my hand at writing and information like this is very helpful.

Wow. Thank you for explaining! lol personally I've used Tai

Though I like Dai better. It seems to suit the word soundage. -shrugs-