The act of already remaking a secret plan asbeloved and influentialas Final Fantasy VII was always a daunting prospect , even before 2020 ’s FFVII Remake made an audacious move to reframe itself as more akin to a metatextual exploration of the very ideaof remaking FFVII . But when that prospect then has to weigh generations of buff nostalgia against real - world cultural influence , thing get even messier .
Such was the subject this week when the prescribed social medium transmission channel for the Remake trilogy — and itsupcoming halfway chapter , due for spillage in February 2024,FFVII Rebirth — confirm how the secret plan will enunciate the name of one of the several new political party members Cloud Strife and his friends will encounter in their journeying : the robotic feline Cait Sith . A party fellow member introduced in the 2nd number of theoriginal Final Fantasy VII , Cait Sith is a small mordant and clean machinelike cat-o'-nine-tails who , after making a brief cameo appearance during the event of remaking , will become a fully fledged political party fellow member in Rebirth .
When Cait Sith was introduced , players only knew the name from reading it . There was no voice acting in the original FFVII , its dialogue playing out across reams of textual matter alternatively of the fully voiced cutscenes expected of many forward-looking game . There have been many continuations of , and summation to , the wider story of Final Fantasy VII in the decades since its unveiling — from motion picture like Advent Children to spinoff game like Dirge of Cerberus — that have since lent voices to characters and clarified pronunciations to element from the original biz , Cait Sith ’s name included . But there are far more multitude conversant with Final Fantasy VII that have solely experienced it through the original game than are those familiar with much of its appurtenant material . It ’s then that — perhaps even moreso when you ’re a relatively young person playing something like FFVII for the first time , as many of its most diehard fans were — the question how are you meant to enunciate a name like “ Cait Sith ” becomes a necessary one for Rebirth to answer . And so , we have the simple message from Square Enix that Rebirth will judge Cait Sith ’s name as “ Kate Sihth . ”
Screenshot: Square Enix
We saw many of you were asking so we hope this helps!#FF7Rpic.twitter.com / ZC4WAu9IpE
— FINAL FANTASY VII ( @finalfantasyvii)October 3 , 2023
“ We reckon many of you were asking so we hope this helps ! ” the official Final Fantasy VII account on X , the platform formerly known as Twitter , innocuously posted , entirely unaware that it was about to coiffure off a firestorm of arguing and mental confusion yesterday . Some the great unwashed exuberate , emboldened that the room they had learn the name in their heads for year was now “ canyon , ” some people were disconcert as to how you could pronounce Cait Sith any other means . But while Square Enix ’s answer may be expected to many of those players — it ’s a largely phonetic pronunciation that puddle sense for anyone who has only have “ Cait Sith ” by understand it in the original FFVII — for anyone conversant with the real - world cultural influence that inspired Cait Sith ’s name in the first place , way out begin to form .
Like many ingredient of Final Fantasy ’s , well , fantasy , the game series has long drawn on element and folkloric beings fromacross real - world and mythology . From fancy staples like goblins , ghouls , imps , and plenty of other fauna , to divine beings that inspire the franchise ’s summonable deities — like Odin , Shiva , Ifrit , Leviathan , Quetzalcoatl , and many more — the influence of real - world faiths and myth on Final Fantasy at large since its very showtime is undeniable . Cait Sith is no exclusion , deal a name and cosmopolitan ocular individuality with the Cat - sìth , a spectral black hombre from folktales across ancient Scotland and Ireland . Also called the Cat - sidhe , in Celt mythology it was consider to be capable of steal the souls of the recently sidetrack ; champion and phratry would place upright watch over over their have sex one ’ bodies to trouble the tool from crossing over the cadaver and exact the deceased somebody ’s soul before the god did . In Gaelic and Irish , the pronunciation of Cait Sith is close to “ Khaet Shee , ” with emphasis on a longer “ ae ” audio — a pronunciation that ’s also largely approximated in Final Fantasy VII ’s Japanese script , where Cait Sith ’s name in katakana is pronounced Ketto Shī .
It ’s in this disparity between the Celtic pronunciation and the phonetic pronunciation Final Fantasy VII has popularize , and now codified in Rebirth , where headache have go up . The Gaelic language has been in declension for centuries , and since the passing of the Gaelic Language Act of 2005 by the Scots sevens , Scotland has made relocation to ensure the history and succeeding survival of Gaelic as one of the nation ’s home spoken language . As of a 2011 census , just 1.7 % of Scotland ’s universe over the geezerhood of three could either speak , scan , drop a line or understand Gaelic — approximately 87,000 people — with only 0.6 % of that figure with multidisciplinary knowledge of the speech communication . Although the incisive decay of the language before the 21st century has for the most part stagnate in part due to educational go-ahead , Gaelic is still a die spoken communication , with scant resources , ones that now see themselves overwhelmed by resource dedicated to series like Final Fantasy that take their own rendering of the language and codify it for non - Gaelic speakers .
If you seek Google for “ Cait Sith pronunciation , ” you ’re now far more probable to witness results related to the Final Fantasy VII fibre , and the news program of Square Enix ’s phonetic pronunciation choice for Rebirth , before you are ones touch on to the Celt folklore that inspired him , or Gaelic - language resources . The argument over how to pronounce Cait Sith ’s name is a very different one compare Final Fantasy VII ’s other likewise passionate naming discussion , that of the translation ofAerith Gainsborough ’s name , referred to as Aeris in the original English displacement ( drawing on the Japanese pronunciation , Earisu ) .
Although they ’re both argument rooted in nostalgia , whether or not you call Aerith that , or Aeris as she was insert to English - speaking consultation in 1997 , does n’t have existent - world significance , as slight as they might be to many Final Fantasy fans , like Cait Sith ’s name does . While it ’s not Square Enix ’s task to safeguard the Gaelic language , it should at the very least be more mindful of influence Final Fantasy has had over generations of adapting a hodge - podge of mythological character reference into its own canon , and the ethnic branching that get along with lifting from real world folklore and mythology for its stories and characters .
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