This is part of a series of comparing the Japanese and English versions of the game. Read more about that here! And feel free to leave a request or curiosity on the comments here or on that page.
The first question regarding Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild!
It is a very simple one:
“What do the Gerudo call boys and girls in Japanese?”
Well, let’s take a look!
| Japanese: | Lit: | Official: | Meaning |
| ヴォーイ | Vooi | Voe | Boy |
| ヴァーイ | Vaai | Vai | Girl |
As you can see from the above, the females have the same term. Vai (with a long vowel in Japanese, shortened for English) but said the same way.
The term for males have changed slightly though. In Japanese, it is “vooi” (like voy, or boy with a v), which may be a reason it was changed for English. Perhaps it would not be as exotic if it was just a slight letter change, and perhaps the “i” sound at the end still sounded more feminine.
So they changed it to “voe” which both differentiates it from the females (using two different vowels, o/e instead of a/i) which can also emphasize how the Gerudo make a great distinction between them.
On a side note, the greetings (sav’aaq and such) seem exactly the same in both versions. I haven’t been on the look out for other terminology, but these are the two most common terms they use in the game.
So, in short: The word for “boys” changed from “voi” to “voe.” The term for “girls” remains “vai.”
Sorry I’ve been so busy lately! Full time job and such as I announced. But comparisons and translations remains my greatest passion, so you can bet I’ll post when I can!
Please feel free to leave comments/suggestions below! See you next article!
kantopia 
Talking about the gerudo, what is Rhondson’s name in Japanese? To be honest, I’m curious about how the whole -son thing from Bolson Construction goes in the Japanese version…
I was actually pretty curious about that too and meant to look into it. I’ll add it to the list of things to do!