Blue Sun characters by Huovi

FIREFLY CHINESE TRANSLATIONS

Blue Sun characters

POSTED BY: HUOVI
UPDATED: Sunday, July 4, 2004 10:21
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Friday, April 4, 2003 9:21 AM

HUOVI

Does any one know the translation for the characters on the Blue Sun logo?

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Friday, April 4, 2003 10:09 AM

HUOVI

I just asked a coworker, and get this... the characters under the english words "blue sun" translates into "blue sun". Huh. Go figure.

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Sunday, April 6, 2003 9:32 AM

FFYING2

According to an on-line Chinese character dictionary ( http://www.uoregon.edu/~felsing/wired/generalindex.htm ):

the original "Blue Sun" was
"blue/indigo/bluish green/bluish gray [day/]sun"
靑日 qing1ri4 [青 is the modern form],

and the new "Blue Sun" is
"indigo/blue-green [day/]sun"
蓝日 lan2ri4.

For some reason they're also using simplified characters for this, 蓝 instead of 藍. Other characters on the ship have been traditional characters.
[ADDED: I now see that most of the characters on the show have been simplified characters.]

Ying 萤
Firefly Funsite
http://fireflyfunsite.home.att.net

EDIT: and now also http://fireflychinese.home.att.net

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Wednesday, August 6, 2003 12:58 PM

JASONZZZ

The second character 日 - ri4, can mean "Sun" in
a very literary sense. But it isn't used in the same
way that the word Sun is used to mean the celestial body.
That word really means the day or a day. You might see
that word in a poem that metaphorically mean a day as
the passage of the sun. That's about it.

I am not as familiar with simplified characters, but
on further note: The better word to use for "Sun"
the celestial body would be yang2:
e.g. Sunlight would be Yang2Guang1

Without the word "Blue Sun" in the logo. Just having
those 2 characters would be sort of ambiguious.
My first conclusion would have been "Blue Day?"
What the!?

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Wednesday, August 6, 2003 7:02 PM

FFYING2

Good point, Jasonzzz. The story's been retold so many times that some of the details can get left out.

Since Chinese characters actually work on this site (Go Haken!), here's yang2: 陽, simplified 阳. By the way, that's also the yang2 of "yin and yang" It's the light to yin1's dark (陰/阴).

螢/萤
Ying
Firefly Funsite
http://fireflyfunsite.home.att.net

EDIT: and now also http://fireflychinese.home.att.net

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Sunday, July 4, 2004 10:21 AM

XIANU

Here's your Chinese lesson for the day from your friendly neighborhood Sinologist-- In following the basic background for why they use Chinese in the Firefly world, it actually makes complete sense that they use the simplified characters, since that is what the PRC uses.Since politically, it seems as though the two superpowers ended up being the People's Republic and (I think?) the US, it would follow that they would choose the simplified characters. The character 日for sun is probably the best one, better than the 陽 some have suggested. The 2 different ones they used for blue 青and 藍 are both accurate, and together you get a literal "Blue Sun" or even "Blue Day." The one I think they used in the second half of the series, 青actually would be more authentic "Chinese." 青 is a more classical word, and can refer to both the blue of the sky, or the ocean as well as the green of a large field of grass. It is also homophonous with other words like "pure" 清 or when using the sun as a radical (root word)晴, is a weather term, meaning a nice, clear, (blue) day.

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