This section explains why the katakana-character combination
indicates that Ptilol is the name of Cyprine's red-haired counterpart.
1. Naoko Takeuchi and the animators write the character's name in the Japanese script as Puchiroru1.
2. Puchiroru is an abbreviation of either 
sha-puchiroru-fusseki, which is the Japanese name of the mineral Clinoptilolite2, or 
puchiroru-fusseki, which is the Japanese name of the mineral Ptilolite3. The 
fusseki suffix often appears in the Japanese names of the minerals of the zeolite group4. It is a Japanese translation5 of the Greek terms 
zeo, which means boil, and 
lithos, which means stone.
3. sha-puchiroru-fusseki seems to be a lot more common than puchiroru-fusseki. (I can find several sources that mention sha-puchiroru-fusseki, but fewer sources mention puchiroru-fusseki.) The name ptilolite has been replaced by Mordenite because it is no longer in use6. A common Japanese name of mordenite is 
moruden-fusseki7. (
Moruden approximates the name Morden)
4. The katakana-character combination 
kurinopuchiroraito can approximate Clinoptilolite8. So:
5. The 
kurino part of kurinopuchiroraito approximates the Clino part in Clinoptilolite.
If we take off the kurino part of kurinopuchiroraito, then we are left with 
puchiroraito, which represents the Ptilolite in Clinoptilolite.
6. When the Japanese script approximates a foreign word with the katakana syllabary, the character 
ru is used to represent the final l sound. The Japanese spelling of Eudial, 
Y
jiaru9, is an abbreviation of 
yjiaru-seki, which is the Japanese name of the mineral Eudialyte10. Even yjiaru-seki is an abbreviation of the rare spelling 
yjiaraito11. The 
raito in yjiaraito, which represents the "lyte" in "Eudialyte," seems to have been replaced by the ru. The ru represents the final l in the name Eudial. So, replacing the raito in puchiroraito with ru is equivalent to removing the ite from ptilolite.
| Japanese: |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
| Romanization: |
 |
pu |
chi |
ro |
ru |
| Witch’s Name: |
|
p |
ti |
lo |
l |
7. The puchiroru in sha-puchiroru-fusseki and puchiroru-fusseki represents the letters Ptilol.
8. So, Puchiroru indicates that the character's name is Ptilol.
© 2001-2008 Ian Andreas Miller. All rights reserved. Those statements refer to all of the original content on these Web pages. All of the other works that are mentioned on these pages are the properties of their authors.
