chantal1382 ([info]chantal1382) wrote,
2006-01-25 21:51:00
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random question

So I've started working my way through episodes of Firefly thanks to my Netflix subscription. I just saw the pilot tonight, and while I'm not absolutely hooked it's enough to keep me watching the DVDs as they show up in my mailbox. I noticed something odd though - every once in awhile the characters lapse into some weird nonsensical language, and I think I heard a few phrases of poorly pronounced Chinese. Anyone know the story behind this? Did Joss Whedon just take phrases from a bunch of languages and insert them randomly into the dialogue as a sort of "hey, it's 500 years in the future and the languages have mixed with each other even more" type of thing?

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  • 4 comments

[info]fairylane

January 26 2006, 04:45:39 UTC 6 years ago

It is indeed supposed to be Chinese. Whedon's rationale is that the US and China were the big surviving superpowers, so everyone is bilingual in those two languages by 2500. I don't doubt that most of it is mispronounced. It's mostly cursing, actually- because, this way, Whedon could get away with swearing on english TV.

Here is a link that shows what all the random Chinese is supposed to mean: http://fireflychinese.home.att.net/

(Just finished the last episode of the boxed set last night).

[info]edgehopper

January 26 2006, 06:08:34 UTC 6 years ago

Not just the big surviving superpowers, but they united to form the Alliance--or more formally, the Anglo-Sino Alliance. The weird nonsensical language is probably also poorly-pronounced Chinese (though a few made-up words, like "gorram", get their own obvious meaning.)

[info]empresscao

January 26 2006, 19:43:09 UTC 6 years ago

"The Alliance", the governmental baddies throughout the series, are the US and Chinese governments merged into one--hence the Chinese swearing, random symbols, random Asian props, etc. I hope you like the rest of the episodes, the series is one of my all-time favorites!

[info]chantal1382

January 27 2006, 04:18:52 UTC 6 years ago

heh, thanks guys. I was a little disappointed when I went to the website and looked at the curses though...I was hoping I'd learn some cool ones (since my mom refuses to teach me any...) and they're actually all pretty tame...nothing I haven't heard since I was five. =)
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