Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Firefly and/or Joss Whedon
BlueMark:
I'm no Brownshirt, who probably have developed some long winded thesis about the socio/political/economic evolution of the Firefly 'Verse. But I'd say the Chinese tid-bits spoken are what Joss Whedon thought would be the American mongrelization of Chinese words as they are incorporated into their spoken English. That is how English develops - by borrowing words and imposing English pronunciation and grammar rules (such as they are) on them. Heck, look at what we've done with French words and Native American words.
The Firefly 'Verse is essentially American - the economic fusion with China may have affected the business culture and the totalitarian politics of the core worlds, but clearly the system was colonized almost exclusively by Americans - or at least the outer world that are the setting for the show.
Akima probably has a good point about people only swearing in their native language, and Chinese is obviously not native to the Firefly 'verse.
But this is probably being way over-thought. In a prime time network television show it is useful to have the frakking swear words in a different language.
Don't be too cool to see the show - it is great fun and among the best SF on TV.
akronnick:
"English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar."
And American English goes further than that. It... well, let's just say when American English is done with a language, somebody is asking it to point at which part of the doll was touched...
DoomMagnet:
Gotta love American English, one of the most difficult languages to learn simply because it is so jumbled and screwed up.
Carl-E:
The worst part is that the native speakers don't even know the language.
Now excuse me, I have some grading to do...
Is it cold in here?:
--- Quote from: Akima on 04 Mar 2011, 03:08 ---Some is actually Japanese.
--- End quote ---
Good lord.
I can't imagine how offensive that is, but I do know _some_ history. Also found out via a friend's Marine dad, who did intelligence work in occupied China, that things were even worse than what's in history textbooks.
OK, that's not a matter of imagining some odd-looking future version of Chinese.
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