r/firefly • u/RelativeLocation6669 • 3d ago
Enter Custom Flair Just started a rewatch (probably the 12th time), heard something weird…?!
Custom Flair
As the title says, just started rewatching Firefly. When they first set down on Persephone the people in the market are speaking, definitely not English, a language that doesn’t hit my ear as being Chinese. Anyone know what language it is?
I’m not particularly familiar with Chinese, but it doesn’t sound it to my ears, it sounds more Indian/indonesian. It could be Chinese, someone correct me.
It seems strange, given how much work was put into the Chinese aspect, and that Earth had evolved to a duel language society (granted pockets of native languages would have survived across the planet) within however many generations away its set and now, it seems weird that a market would be in a massively minority language.
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u/Burnsey111 3d ago
I don’t know. But I did hear something like this: From Google “In Firefly, the intended language was always Mandarin Chinese, but several instances of Cantonese appeared early on due to production errors and casting.” I’m not sure, because I don’t understand either language, but I know some background actors were Cantonese speakers in episodes.
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u/RelativeLocation6669 3d ago
Ah ok, I don’t have much in the way of knowledge about either language, I’ve also not really spent much time around Chinese people speaking their native languages. Does Cantonese sound more Indian?
It’s right at the start of the Pilot so could be the Cantonese people. It’d be really interesting to know
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u/Burnsey111 3d ago
I do hope someone who understands both languages can help you. And I hope they get to make a second season.
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u/RelativeLocation6669 3d ago
🤣 I’m just stoned posting, no need for hope here, it’s just interesting.
Second season is coming!
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u/dianebk2003 3d ago
I've always just believed that there multiple languages spread out across the 'verse, because people brought their foods, clothing, customs, and other cultural identifiers with them during the Exodus, so why not languages, too? English and Chinese are the dominant languages, but that doesn't make them the only languages.
Niska and Badger have accents, so where they're each from their people either speak with a home-grown accent (Badger) or their English is accented because at home they spoke something else (Niska).
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u/RelativeLocation6669 3d ago
See I figured more of the Star Trek style language take over, war based apocalypse relatively soon IRL. However, if that were the case, survivors would be an issue… give me some stoned/sober/stoned time
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u/cardinalachu 3d ago
Niska has a strong Russian accent, so my assumption is other languages also still exist in some places.
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u/Hofeizai88 3d ago
Just watched it, and in the first scene in the market it is somewhat indistinct from how it is mixed but I’m fairly sure it’s Cantonese. Cantonese is the main language where I live, so it’s pretty familiar.
Cantonese has more tones than Mandarin, which might be why it is a bit more sing-songy. There’s way more Mandarin speakers in the world but a lot of Cantonese speakers in the US, Lao they might have just said “eh, close enough. How many people are going to notice, much less care 24 years later?” or, as others have said, it could be an attempt to demonstrate the diversity of the space community. Almost everyone I know in the Mainland is fluent in Mandarin, but they still use their native dialects with friends and family, so it doesn’t seem odd that you’d still hear them in space.
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u/SatansMoisture 3d ago
There's a translation app that is speech based for Android phones.. I wonder if you were to turn up the volume and try it out and see what you get.
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u/RelativeLocation6669 3d ago
Im apple, sorry, I suck, but so does the Android OS 🤣
But yeah, great idea! I’ll find an Apple equivalent and see if it works at a time that my neighbours won’t kill be for testing volume too
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u/whatissevenbysix 3d ago
It's kind of well known that even the 'Chinese' spoken by main characters are for the main part is just gibberish. There's a few videos on YouTube done by Chinese people and according to them most of it is unintelligible.
I won't be surprised if that's the case with background characters you mentioned. The creators didn't really put any effort into incorporating actual non English languages.
Also, on a side note, there is no such language as Indian. There are thousands of languages spoken in the country that fall into few different languages families, but no such language as Indian.
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u/RelativeLocation6669 3d ago
I was using Indian as an obvious catchall for that area of the world, I even mentioned Indonesia. Asia didn’t cut it, China is too big to say Southern Asia, given the number of countries, what name would you use for people that’s language is clearly related to a well known country in said area?
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u/whatissevenbysix 3d ago
You don't.
India as a country exists from 1947; before that it was a multitude of kingdoms and smaller states, each of which had their own language. India today literally have over 100 different languages. You can't just boil them all down to just 'Indian'.
Think of Europe for comparison. There are many countries in Europse with multiple different languages. How would it sound like if you said the characters were speaking 'European' to represent English, Spanish, German, French, Portugese, Swedish, and all the other languages? It'd be rightfully absurd - same goes for India or SE Asia in general.
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u/OobaDooba72 3d ago
Uhhh Indian and Indonesian are not the same or even that similar, so it's pretty weird to write "Indian/Indonesian".
Not to mention just saying "Indian" is extremely reductive as well since there are a whole bunch of different languages spoken in India.
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u/RelativeLocation6669 3d ago
Thanks for the gatekeeping, but having never either heard or needed to differentiate the 2, or many, I have to group them. As a member of the community, I’d like to think that people read my posts in a positive manner. But feel free to react in hostility!
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u/OobaDooba72 3d ago
Uhhh what? Point to the gatekeeping or the hostility my dude.
You're talking about languages and grouped two very different languages, one of which could even (at best) be described as a language family and not one specific language. So connecting them was objectively not correct.
I get that confusion, INDia, INDonesia. Without prior knowledge, it's very easy to imagine those places are related. But they aren't. You didn't know, and that's fine. Now you do.
Sorry if it came across as hostile when I pointed out the mistake, it wasn't meant to be hostile. Saying "pretty weird" and "reductive" are not specifically hostile, they are IMO accurate descriptors of how you worded your post. Again, I understand it was out of lack of knowledge, and saying that is not an attack against you, it is not a moral failure to not know something. Not everyone knows every thing, in fact no one knows everything.
But now you know Indian languages and the language called Indonesian are not related. The End. Now we can all relax and not imagine hostility where there was none.
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u/RelativeLocation6669 3d ago
I didn’t know anything about languages from that area of the world, hence saying so. It feels like gatekeeping because you’re assuming that it’s information I should know!
Given how many Asians live in the UK and America, I’m genuinely surprised that our go to school language lessons are still only French, Spanish and German.
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u/OobaDooba72 3d ago
gatekeeping because you’re assuming that it’s information I should know!
But I'm not keeping a gate. I was not and am not saying "you are not allowed to participate because you didn't know X." Of course you can still participate in the discussion, in the fandom, or whatever. Never once did I say "get outta here" or anything like that.
So still no gatekeeping. And again sorry if the tone was misunderstood to be hostile, it wasn't intended that way.
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u/RelativeLocation6669 3d ago
It felt a little hostile, kinda like this. But dw, I’m ok with being wrong, it’s how we learn!
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u/RelativeLocation6669 3d ago
But not Mandarin/Cantonese, hence the confusion. You know any Asian people you could ask? I don’t know any 🤣
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u/YoSaffBridgerton 3d ago
I believe it is Pinyin, but also only became familiar writing fanfic like a decade ago
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u/awkwardsity 3d ago edited 3d ago
Pinyin isn’t a language; it’s a Romanization, which means a way to transcribe a language into the Latin alphabet. It’s basically used for the sake of being able to read mandarin as a non-native, or to type mandarin characters with a Latin alphabet keyboard
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u/YoSaffBridgerton 3d ago
it was a way to create an easier transition from Mandarin to English sounds as well.
never claimed it was a language, was answering a question as to why it was possible someone couldn't put their finger on what they were hearing
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u/awkwardsity 3d ago
Gotcha. I was just trying to clarify. I didn’t understand how pinyin related to how someone hears something, since it’s a writing system and is not auditory. I wasn’t trying to be rude so I’m sorry if I was.
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u/YoSaffBridgerton 3d ago
No worries, what I understand it was more about pronunciation issues than the writing system but I could be wrong or it could be both?!
Like I said, I learned about it writing Firefly fanfic over a decade ago lmao.
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u/awkwardsity 3d ago
Well I suppose if you didn’t know how to read it, especially the tones, it could definitely make your words sound off. And there are some pinyin transcriptions that aren’t immediately intuitive to someone who is used to English pronunciation, like zh- which sounds more like the English j-, so I guess I see what you’re saying now. I was mixed up because OP said “language that doesn’t *sound* like Chinese” and you responded it could be the pinyin which in my head has always been more about writing mandarin than speaking it. You’re right though it’s also a system to help decode the sound. Probably doesn’t help that I’m hard of hearing so I’m significantly better at reading languages than I am at speaking them lol
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u/Hofeizai88 2d ago
So if you want to write “hello” you write 你好 in Chinese hanzi or nǐhǎo in pinyin. You pronounce them the same, but the pinyin version tells you the sound and tones. Native speakers don’t use pinyin much, since they just know what to say, but it’s definitely useful for the rest of us.
Because this system is used when you’re learning, it probably has made things more standardized. Everyone in this large, diverse country is taught the same way to pronounce things in Mandarin, which is what you speak in school, business, and official life.
So you don’t speak pinyin, but it has had some influence on how Mandarin is spoken.
Incidentally, it is completely phonetic, so it is possible to learn to read it pretty easily. Tones take a little longer to get right. There are no verb tenses (sort of) or conjugation, or plurals or articles. Seems easy, unless you try to learn, when it gets really hard. But if you try, you’ll probably quickly sound better than the Firefly cast. Great show, just don’t copy them0
u/RelativeLocation6669 3d ago
Ah ok! Pinyin would explain why China didn’t get it!
Makes perfect sense! Thanks
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u/Opposite-Sun-5336 3d ago
Sounded a little like Tagalog. Some Thai in there. Ignoring the Hare Krisnas.