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Originally posted by GatorMarc:
Gotta wonder if something similar would happen if the world's oldest culture were to meat head on with the greatest economic power in history.

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Originally posted by GatorMarc:
Does anyone else think that Engrish or something like it could end up being a dominant world language in the future? I already see a lot of it in Asia where the US Culture has mixed.

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Originally posted by TinyTimm:
It also has no "American" attached to it. In the USofA they have no native language, they swiped it from the old British Empire, like most of the other ex-colonies. ;->

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Originally posted by Thegn:
I don't know for sure if you can really call the Jews a continuously existing culture. The Jews that are discussed in the later biblical age seem to have begun to vanish by the end of the 2nd century CE. There is no real evidence to suggest that that culture has ever re-emerged. So essentially, the Jews that we know from the Bible disappeared before the fall of the Roman Empire. Since then, Judaism has been defined as a religious aspect of other cultures. So it depends, largely, on what your qualifications are for a "culture." Certainly, Judaism can be called a culture, but I don't think it can be compared as a culture in the same way the Chinese culture is one.

Yiddish is a good example of what I mean. Except for religious text, Hebrew, until 1948, was a dead language. Yiddish is not Hebrew, but a dialect of German. And the evolution of the German language shares no cultural link with the Hebrew language. They are culturally unrelated. Essentially, we are not talking about a distinct Jewish culture but a German culture that happens to be Jewish. The same is true of other Jewish peoples around the world.

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Originally posted by RobertSparling:
Wash said he went to flight school in the thrid ep, right? Would he be able to get a job flying anything reputable without an Alliance-made liscense? I doubt it. So he was probably at least familiar with both languages, if not as fluent as others.

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And I'm not sure everyone is exactly fluent in Chinese. They mostly appear to swear or jibe each other with it, not compose spontaneous haikus.

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Originally posted by Soraya:
The most revealing part about their use of Chinese is the SITUATIONS in which the characters use it. It's mostly in moments of high emotional distress that they switch tongue - a pattern you usually see in people who don't use their mother tongue in every day life. Only when the subconsiousness blurts something out (as in "Our Mrs Reynolds" when Jayne confronts Mal with "Vera" and Mal finally realizes this *won't* be a shoot-out) they return to the language grew up with. Being a German who speaks English most of the times, I know what I'm talking about :-) (been there, done that).

So, my very personal (already dis-proven) opinion would be that they all grew up with Chinese being the first language... and English only coming later (bi-lingual ed from very small age).

Anyone in on this?

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Originally posted by Visionary:
One thing that may or may not be important is this: have you noticed that while they all speak chinese, there are NO chinese people...anywhere. There haven't even been any asian extras.

Why? Does that mean something?

Just a thought

"Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair" Ozymandius - Percy Shelley

"It is a reminder to me that all things end" Spock

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Originally posted by Visionary:
One thing that may or may not be important is this: have you noticed that while they all speak chinese, there are NO chinese people...anywhere.
Why? Does that mean something?

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