Since comics are a silent medium, mispronunciations of character names can be a common problem. You’re not alone if you grew up thinking Magneto was pronounced with a “net” instead of the correct “neat” syllable and felt a little surprised hearing it out loud in the animated series or the arcade game. Well, today we add another wrinkle into the “how do you say it?” list of X-Men characters.
The introduction of Kwannon [Ed. note: also known as Revanche] back in 1993 was convoluted enough, but this week Ted Liaw, a resident of Japan, X-Men fan, and office worker, dropped a bombshell on social media that we might have been incorrectly pronouncing Kwannon’s name for almost three decades!
I took some time to speak with Ted about his revelation.
AR: Ted, you’ve single-handedly blown the minds of X-Fans across the internet by letting us know that we’ve been mispronouncing Kwannon for the last 27 years. Can you tell us – definitively – how should we be pronouncing it?
TL: Wow you’re giving me a lot of credit here! I’m not gonna dictate how readers should be pronouncing names in their heads—goodness knows I’m still not sure about Rahne sometimes—but I can tell you that the first syllable is close to “Khan” or the “con” in “Construct” and the second syllable is similar to “Own” or the “O” in “Opal.” So put them together, and I guess it would sound like KHAN-own.
AR: I don’t think I’m giving you too much credit here, this is something I don’t think the vast majority of X-Fans have ever heard or thought about. So, officially the W is supposed to be silent in Japanese. Is this something you’ve thought about before or was it a newfound realization?
TL: Yes, we wouldn’t pronounce the W. It’s a pre-modern system of transcribing Japanese into the alphabet that probably no one on the planet uses anymore, so it’s no surprise people would be confused, I guess. It’s not anything new for me, but I don’t recall exactly when I worked it out.
AR: The etymological origin of Kwannon is the bodhisattva Guanyin or Guan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. In its original form, there is still a “W” sound, but in its Japanese form (where Kwannon is from), that sound is absent and the word is Kannon. Is this a linguistic shortcut or as you said more a result of an archaic transcription?
TL: Ah, I believe that can be attributed to the change from the Chinese name (Guanyin) to the Japanese name (Kannon). It’s neither a shortcut nor anything to do with the transcription; it’s simply an example of a word in two different languages exhibiting slight differences. I might think of it how in English we call the capital of France Par-iS but in the native French it sounds more like Par-EE.
AR: You also noted that Kwannon is the origin of a big electronics company’s name as well, right?
TL: Yes, but to be honest I got that from the Wikipedia page so maybe don’t quote me on that one:
“[Canon] was originally named Seikikōgaku kenkyūsho (Jpn. 精機光学研究所, Precision Optical Industry Co. Ltd.). In 1934 it produced the Kwanon, a prototype for Japan’s first-ever 35 mm camera with a focal-plane-based shutter. In 1947 the company name was changed to Canon Camera Co., Inc., shortened to Canon Inc. in 1969. The name Canon comes from Buddhist bodhisattva Guan Yin (観音, Kannon in Japanese), previously transliterated as Kuanyin, Kwannon, or Kwanon in English.”
Canon
The name of the Canon company, even here in Japan, is also pronounced KYA-non now, not KHan-on like our erstwhile ninja.
AR: Thank you, Ted! I really appreciate you taking a minute to clear this up for us.
Now, of course, neither Ted nor I were involved in the creation of Kwannon, so it was important to me to get some feedback from Kwannon’s creator, Fabian Nicieza. I asked Fabian how he came to use the name Kwannon, and whether we should be saying her name with or without the “W.”
I originally derived the name from the Japanese goddess of mercy and compassion (purposefully playing with the idea that Betsy originally was, but Psylocke wasn’t). The god has other counterparts in Buddhist and Hindu religions, too. The name was shown as Kannon or Kwannon in my research then (and still is now with a quick Google search). I pronounced it Kwah-nahn, but that was always an assumption. I didn’t think it was pronounced that way in Japanese or else why would there have been a Kannon? I just picked Kwannon because I thought it looked better on the page. And, to be completely honest, 30 years later, whatever floats the most boats is fine with me!
Fabian Nicieza
So now we know the creation of Kwannon’s name involved not just the Japanese version of the translation of Guan Yin, how Fabian intended it to be pronounced, and also that he’s open to other pronunciations of the name.
But regardless of authorial intent, the name Kwannon itself in Japanese, where the character Kwannon is from, is pronounced without the W sound. This correct pronunciation seems doubly important now that British Betsy Braddock has been returned to her original body as Captain Britain, and Japanese Kwannon is back to her original body as Psylocke. Hopefully, the X-Office will take notice of Ted’s reveal and Fabian’s openness to it and set the record straight on the page, making the correct pronunciation. . . Kwannon-ical.
Adam Reck is the cartoonist behind Bish & Jubez as well as the co-host of Battle Of The Atom.
