Katakana

POSTED BY: Ristol
UPDATED: Saturday, December 10, 2005 13:30
VIEWED: 7728
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RISTOL

Monday, October 10, 2005 8:46 PM

There's something a little curious in the new movie Serenity. Near the beginning when it shows River looking at her 'textbook' (before being told to lie down by the teacher) there is Chinese, but also katakana (Japanese characters roughly equivalent to using italics in English; a syllabry that can be used to write any sound in the language). I couldn't make any sense of what was written in it so I don't believe that it was Japanese.
I was wondering if maybe Joss was implying that in the future Chinese has borrowed the Japanese katakana as a syllabry? It doesn't seem that it would be practical to use katakana for chinese in any way, but is this what is happening in her textbook?

I'm gonna party like it's 18"99"

SICKDUDE

Monday, October 10, 2005 10:38 PM

I noticed that too. Also, there's katakana on one of the doors leading out of the kitchen, possibly the one they lock River up in. It might say "kitchen". Curious...

"Don't say 'ka' until you've tried it." Daniel Jackson

FFYING2

Monday, October 10, 2005 11:52 PM

Unfortunately, both the katakana and the Chinese characters scrolling by in various places are just gibberish.

The katakana on Serenity's inner doors is "serira" and maybe "kuman"--again gibberish.

Ying

Firefly Funsite http://fireflyfunsite.home.att.net
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KIZYR

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 1:17 AM

Ying's right on the kana... Seeing it (on the Serenity doors), I assumed that it was just an abbreviation for something. There're a lot of abbreviations / acronyms made to form new words (e.g., serira could be made from SErenity LIft LAnder, or some other random designation... shot in the dark here).

The Matrix-like writing flashing through in River's vision... well that I'm inclined to buy as just dreamlike gibberish, like how you can't really read in your dreams. There's already a Chinese phonetic system, and otherwise I'd assume they'd use pinyin or something similar, considering English is the other dominant language. KF

~Kaiser Farooque

ZOE: Preacher, don’t the Bible have some pretty specific things to say about killing?
BOOK: Quite specific. It is, however, somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps...

SICKDUDE

Tuesday, October 11, 2005 5:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ffying2:
The katakana on Serenity's inner doors is "serira"

My wife thought this might be Cellar.

"Don't say 'ka' until you've tried it." Daniel Jackson

FFYING2

Wednesday, October 12, 2005 5:42 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Sickdude:
My wife thought this might be Cellar.

Well, "cellar" should be セラー　(se ra a). In fact, Japanese has borrowed the word "cellar" in the baseball losing-team sense and has appropriately transliterated it as セラー　(se ra a) not セリラ　(se ri ra).

In case anyone's curious, "cellular" is セルラー (se ru ra a), but セリュラー (se ryu ra a) would have been a closer match.

Ying

RISTOL

Wednesday, October 12, 2005 9:56 PM

That's interesting, I didn't know that there was already a Chinese phonetic system... my sister told me there was none (of course, she's just in 102..)
Thanks for the info, I'll have to look it up, it'd be interesting to see how they did it!

I'm gonna party like it's 18"99"

FFYING2

Thursday, October 13, 2005 12:32 AM

Ristol:

Here's a good place to start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo

The current official name of the syllabary is Zhuyin Fuhao, but the name "bopomofo" reflects the first four sounds a la "alphabet" from alpha-beta.

Pinyin romanization (Latin alphabet) has caught on for certain uses, but bopomofo is still popular in Taiwan, which also uses a slightly different pinyin system (Tongyong Pinyin) from the PRC (Hanyu Pinyin).

OOKAMIKAWAHARA

Thursday, December 1, 2005 8:33 AM

I was wondering about it too. Caught it on the trailer clip before I saw the actual movie. Don't know if its Katakana or I've also heard the term simplifyed Chinese when I've been looking into jobs. Don't know if its just simplifyed Chinese or what. Thanks for the catch, good eye!!! Posted in General as well but was also wondering about the kanji for bluesun. In Japanese the bottom character used is month, but in the show I saw it as the kanji radicle for circle or (en) and wondering if its a difference in Chinese vrs Japanese writing or if its a screw up. Anyways thanks for the post!!!

We be aimen to be misbehaven boys and girls
Brown Coats

OOKAMIKAWAHARA

Thursday, December 1, 2005 8:39 AM

Just read the other posts and some good ideas form everyone!! will have to check it out again. Yeah I kinda caught that but would have to look again to double check the kana. The other thing is half the time the Japanese screw up English words in Katakana. There are two ways to do it. Either by prounciation or by the actual spelling. Prounciation is the closer one. Anyways have fun, enjoy the show and the languages here!!!

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