Correct characters for Serenity

POSTED BY: pingjing
UPDATED: Monday, April 4, 2005 23:02
VIEWED: 12583
PAGE 1 of 1

PINGJING

Thursday, June 24, 2004 4:05 AM (P)

This is probably a question that's been answered at some point, or maybe it's so obvious that it's never been asked. But I'm still unclear as to what the translation for Serenity would be. Let me explain - I was in New York this weekend, and happened by a Chinese artist on Broadway. He didn't have any artwork of serenity painted and framed, but said he could paint it for me. The characters he painted weren't exactly what I've been seeing on the boards, t-shirts, and Ying's site. Could there be possibly more than one way to "spell" this in Chinese, or was this Chinese guy just wrong?

I don't have a scanner, but let me try to explain what the characters look like. The simpler character is missing (the vertical line with two horizontal lines and two short diagonal dashes). The more complicated character is essentially the same as the one I've seen, at least on the left side, but the right side is different. There's a vertical line with three horizontal lines through it, but the part above that is three short vertical dashes underneath a long horizontal line.
I hope I'm not being horribly confusing, but maybe someone can explain this to me? Thanks!

Julia

RKLENSETH

Thursday, June 24, 2004 4:13 AM (P)

There is more than one Chinese language (Mandarin and Cantonese) and even more dialects. Mandarin is the Chinese used in Firefly which is rarer than Cantonese so I have heard.

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

KERNELM

Thursday, June 24, 2004 5:22 AM (P)

Um, Cantonese and Mandarin _are_ dialects. Written Chinese is uniform, except that Mainland China adopted a "simplified" form of many characters/radicals which is probably where the differences mentioned above come from, though it could certainly also be simply a different translation. I mean, there's lots of synonyms in every language for pretty much every word.

Also, Mandarin is almost certainly spoken by many more people than Cantonese, by virtue of the fact that it is the official dialect of mainland China (as well as Taiwan, for that matter). There is the perception that Cantonese is more popular because Cantonese were the first people to immigrate en masse to the West, and so a lot of Chinese communities in the US are predominantly Cantonese. In China however, simply for logistical reasons, the majority of the population has to know Mandarin to be able to communicate between regions. Many people in southern China are bi-dialectical.

JASONZZZ

Thursday, June 24, 2004 7:29 AM (P)

Julia,

you are looking for this thread...

http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=5014

PINGJING

Thursday, June 24, 2004 5:35 PM (P)

Thanks for all the responses - the guy said he wrote it in Mandarin, which I believe is the same dialect Firefly uses. I still don't understand why ping is missing, but the variations in the jing must make it some synonym or other. I'll try to get access to a scanner and post the picture, and once I do that, maybe a Chinese speaker could be so nice as to come along and translate it correctly for me.

Julia

AE660

Thursday, July 1, 2004 4:59 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by pingjing:
The more complicated character is essentially the same as the one I've seen, at least on the left side, but the right side is different. There's a vertical line with three horizontal lines through it, but the part above that is three short vertical dashes underneath a long horizontal line.

I believe the character you saw was 「靜」. This is the traditional way of writing this character. The Chinese found on Firefly is often written in Simplified Chinese, which is used in Mainland China and Singapore.

"Serenity" is often translated into「平靜」or「寧靜」in Chinese. (I'm using traditional characters again.) Does the second translation match what the artist wrote?

CAPNRAHN

Thursday, July 1, 2004 5:37 PM (P)

Whoops, the Trebuchet MS font that Haken uses does not support the Chinese characters you posted ... at least all I see on my end is boxes instead of the characters.

Maybe a pic of the ideograms would be better?

"Remember, there is only ONE absolute - There ARE NO absolutes!!!"

AE660

Thursday, July 1, 2004 10:39 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by CapnRahn:
Maybe a pic of the ideograms would be better?

I don't have a pic, but go here:
http://zhongwen.com/d/192/x82.htm

The character inside the bracket is the simplified version. The one outside the bracket is the one I wrote.

The "simplified" version of "jing" isn't one that was invented recently, but one that has been in common use--just not in formal writing. The Japanese use the simplified version of the character as well.

JASONZZZ

Thursday, July 1, 2004 11:10 PM (P)

To display the Chinese characters correctly on the Windoze platform, you'll have to install the "Simplied Chinese" and "Traditional Chinese" language options under Control Panel / Regional Options.

PINGJING

Friday, July 2, 2004 3:36 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by ae660:
I believe the character you saw was 「靜」. This is the traditional way of writing this character. The Chinese found on Firefly is often written in Simplified Chinese, which is used in Mainland China and Singapore.

"Serenity" is often translated into「平靜」or「寧靜」in Chinese. (I'm using traditional characters again.) Does the second translation match what the artist wrote?

I'm getting boxes instead of characters too (just tried installing the language thing, but I must have done it wrong...?) BUT...I followed your link, and you're right. The character I have is in traditional Mandarin, not simplified. Thank you so much for figuring that out for me, it was driving me crazy!

Now just one more question...what I have written is the traditional version of jing, but shouldn't there be ping too? And if ping is missing, does the meaning change?

Julia

AE660

Friday, July 2, 2004 8:48 PM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by pingjing:
Quote:
Now just one more question...what I have written is the traditional version of jing, but shouldn't there be ping too? And if ping is missing, does the meaning change?

The meaning doesn't quite change. "Jing" is the keyword here, because it can mean quiet, still, serene, etc. But usually "jing" is qualified with "ping" when translating "serenity." Having just the character "jing" broadens the meaning.

PINGJING

Saturday, July 3, 2004 1:00 AM (P)

And all my questions are answered. Thank you so much, ae660, you're awesome.

Julia

FFYING2

Wednesday, July 7, 2004 12:31 AM (P)

Quote:
Originally posted by pingjing:
And all my questions are answered. Thank you so much, ae660, you're awesome.

Julia

So, if you got those "other" characters in simplified form, I think you'd be ready for the movie.

The new set pictures in today's Serenity blog show the clapboard with "SERENITY" and ning2jing4 (tranquility, tranquil)--not the ping2jing4 (tranquil) shown in the series pilot. Then there was the pre-show crew sweatshirt qi2 (peace and happiness).

Who can keep up?

http://www.serenitymovie.com/blog/index.php
-----

MOVIE: 宁静

ning2
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=5B81

jing4
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=9759
-----

SERIES: 平静

ping2
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=5E73

jing4
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=9759

-----

PRE-SHOW (crew sweatshirt): 祇

qi2
http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=7947

Ying
Firefly Funsite http://fireflyfunsite.home.att.net
Firefly Chinese Pinyinary http://fireflychinese.home.att.net

BAHAMUDE

Friday, March 11, 2005 7:11 PM (P)

A lot has been said about the Chinese language and though it might have already been covered in another thread, since the question of dialects was raised I just want to make it clear that Chinese has a uniform written system and hundreds of spoken forms. OK, it really has a simplified and traditional written system but they are at its roots the same language. Being Chinese myself and having travelled throughout China, you learn very quickly that each region and subregion has their own dialect and subdialects, of which Cantonese is just one. What unifies the country together is Mandarin which was specificallly designed in more ancient times to be the trade language. Today it remains the most spoken dialect in China. In business it joins English and Shanghaiese which is the dialect in the city of Shanghai as the languages of commerce.

The proliferation of Cantonese in the U.S. is due directly to the source of the dialect being the closest city to Hong Kong. Many people from Guangzhou (whose dialect is known as guangdong hua and whose city was known as Canton to foreigners) fled to Hong Kong during the Communist take over in China in the 50s. Prior to do that, bachelors left the Guangdong region to travel to the U.S. to work and send money home, most notably in the railroads from California eastward. In time, Hong Kong, which has always traditionally enjoyed a very strong Cantonese influence, became a blossoming trade center under British rule and the weigh station to the U.S. and Britain for refugees fleeing Communist China. Keep in mind that most Chinese speak more than one dialect of Chinese- usually Mandarin + their local dialect. Which they favor varies by individual but it's not uncommon for Educated Chinese to know as many as 3 or 4 dialects including Mandarin.

But I digress. Anyways, many Chinese communities in the U.S. spoke Cantonese since their communities were originally from places in Guangdong province where Guangzhou (Canton) is located. Hence the strong Cantonese presence in Chinatowns across America.

Do not make the mistake in thinking that Cantonese is some kind of commoner dialect and Mandarin some kind of refined dialect. Both perceptions are wrong. Mandarin is the mainstream dialect in China and the dialect they teach in all the schools. Cantonese is a provincial dialect that Beijing has been trying hard to stamp out, along with all the other local dialects in China. Its strong presence here in the U.S. is a result of where the refugees from China came from as a result of Mao.

I hope this helps people understand the presence of Cantonese and how the dialects propagated where they are now.

JASONZZZ

Monday, April 4, 2005 11:02 PM (P)

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