Amy Wong cussing

Is it in Chinese? Probably not. I asked a friend of mine in Hong Kong to give it a listen and here's what she replied:

Forget it, I've had friends fluent in mandarin and japanese (and myself in cantonese) listened to it over and over again and none of us can figure out what she said.

On Fri, 14 May 1999 07:25:19 -0400, "WAV King" wrote:

In article ,

Well, with 1000 years of linguistic drift, what do you expect? Now find someone fluent in the Martian dialects and maybe you can figure out what it means....

In ye olden post [email] spake...

Exactly. Loot at English 1000 years ago. How comprehensible is that to a modern speaker? Read Beowulf (circa 1100) and find out! Check out this image of the first page of the original Beowulf manuscript:

http://www.bcconline.com/eng2/beomanus.jpg

I can't begin to impress upon people this simple, common sense: The changes that occurred in the English language 1,000 years preceeding today were FAR MORE drastic than they will be over the next 1,000 years. Why do I say this? Well, let's look at global communication 1,000 years ago.... okay, rather, let's look at the LACK of global communication 1,000 years ago. Get my point?

Over the NEXT 1,000 years I personally feel that English, if anything, will begin to "normalize" on a global scale. There'll be fewer English dialects, slang terms will become more universal in their use, and to top it all off, it already looks like English will become the Earth's "universal" language of the future. If English DOES become the main language spoken around the globe, there will HAVE to be a standard by which it will be used. It only makes sense that this is so. Let's look at the number system... now, it's fairly certain that nearly anywhere you go in the world the number 5 MEANS that there is 5 of something represented. In the final analysis, this means: there will more than likely be FEWER changes over the next 1,000 years than we would like to think.

Now I'm sure that there'll be a few new words added over time, some omitted, others used differently... but I honestly think that English would be VERY recognizeable to us in the future. But that's just my opinion.

In ye olden post [email] spake...

On a global scale, yes. But should humans move out beyond the globe, I can forsee a great many human colonies with little contact between one another due to that annoying speed of light problem. Heck, speed-of- light communications can take 6 hours to reach Jupiter. Now imagine humans on some planet a measley 1 light year away. That kind of delay is going to limit any sort of large scale communications and encourage linguistic isolation.

For some strange reason, I find her cussung rather sexy. Maybe it has a hypnotic message, kinda like backward masking in music.

Bruce James Robert Linley wrote in message news:[email]...

sweet."

Has anyone played the cussing BACKWARDS to see if it makes sense that way?

Mr. Roboto wrote in message

In article ,

next

LACK

anything,

English

What kind of delay? (in reference to the world of Futurama that is). After all, we don't exactly know the various speeds of ships(let alone anything about FTL communication.). About the only data we have is for the moon trip episode, and that's hardly a lot to go by.

In article ,

What kind of delay? (in reference to the world of Futurama that is). After all, we don't exactly know the various speeds of ships(let alone anything about FTL communication.). About the only data we have is for the moon trip episode, and that's hardly a lot to go by.

In article , [email] wrote:

No, I'm afraid not. For one thing, you seem to be overlooking certain events in Fry's sleep period, namely what appears to be a rather serious collapse in civilization(and hence communication). For another, "lack" of global communication 1,000 years ago didn't hurt Spanish or other languages which didn't change as much English. Why? I don't know for sure, but I think at least one reason would be that English culture was more exposed to other languages than ones with less change....now whether this would apply to the subject at hand, well, I can guess it matters somewhat, especially when you factor in alien forms of speech.

And perhaps in the world of Futurama that might be true(certainly Fry
doesn't have all that many difficulties communicating), at least for
Earth...but remember we're not talking about English, but another
language entirely.   One without the normalization factors to which
you're referring.   And let's not even get into how many dialects
develpoed in Roman where Latin was in a similar place.

As they say, it depends.

[email] wrote:

Actually, English didn't really develop *until* almost 1,000 years ago. It's a "mutt" language borrowed from Latin, German, Spanish, French, and a whole slew of other languages. The *reason* it evolved so much in 1,000 years is *because* of its origins... now that it's had time to (as I put it) "normalize", it shouldn't really change any more than the other classic languages did when English was first created. If I'm right we can use Esperanto as a model of what English went through. Esperanto is a VERY young language (like English it's a "mutt" language as well) and it's still going through changes. And the British Isles weren't any more exposed to other cultures than say the French or Germans. As for alien forms of speech... wouldn't every other human language change, too, to accomodate alien speech?

Who's to say that an alien language wouldn't accomodate English? If English language *were* to be assimiliated into alien tongues then they'd have to change as well, wouldn't they?

On what?

In article , [email] wrote:

Well, it depends on how one defines "English" . I'd add 500 years to that myself, but if someone else wants to use another, well, I can see where they would have grounds to do so..

Didn't I already say something like this?

How much have the Romance languages branced? Or the Slavic? Quite a lot in some cases, less in others.

Unlike English, it's deliberately so, as it's synthetic..and the Polish guy who created it wanted it to be as broadly Indo-European as possible. As for the changes, I don't know, but AFAIK, there really is no culture of Esperanto so it might not be best to use that as an example. But hey, if you want to use Esperanto, fine, show me their Normans.

(This is getting quite far from Futurama, but I don't mind..:))

I don't recally saying they weren't. Don't think I mentioned either of those. And certainly German did differ, at least in spoken form, for IIRC, Martin Luther's translation of the Bible managed to create a common written form..

Did I say something that implied they wouldn't??

Matt Groening. It is *his* show, isn't it?

I'm not saying anything definite, as I'm wise enough to know a situation where everything is up in the air so to speak.

On what happens, or has happened, or will happen. Or what is, what was, and what will be. Basically, it means there's no hard data to rely on, it's all hot air. Heck, I can even explain Fry's ability to communicate by saying he got injected with a Babelfish of some kind, and until Matt Groening sayins otherwise, well..

In article , [email] wrote:

culture

Ahem. You could argue endlessly over how to define "culture", but at least one can say that Esperanto has a "speech community" like any of the other languages studied in linguistics. At <http://www.euronet.nl/users/oostend/economy.html> you can see an example of the kind of paper linguists write about what they observe to be happening in that speech community. The first part, about the distinction van Oostendorp makes between Esperanto as a "language project' and what he calls "Colloquial Esperanto", probably relevant.

No Normans, though. ;-)

Amy Wong's cussing is phonetically closest to today's Japanese, Chinese would've been a bit higher in tone with more vowels. Which on the large scale suggest Japanese domination at least on Mars (if not in the future or on-the-way-to-the-future Far East).

NightShadow wrote:

Certainly changes in English seem to be slowing, whatever the cause. Compare Chaucer (roughly 1400), Shakespeare (roughly 1600), and Austen (roughly 1800). The first writes in almost a foreign language. You need a glossery for every line and things like pronouns are all wrong. Shakespeare seems much less archaic, but his writing is far enough from the English of today to be difficult and easily misunderstood. There are many modern words Austen doesn't use, but the words she uses are all familiar and one can read her without thinking much about the differences in language. Except for the addition of vocabulary to describe new things, the changes in the last 200 years strike me as far less radical than those in either of the two prior 200-year periods.

Paul Turner

Subject: Re: Amy Wong cussing From: Paul Turner Date: 5/17/99 12:17 AM Eastern Daylight Time Message-id:

NightShadow wrote:

Certainly changes in English seem to be slowing, whatever the cause. Compare Chaucer (roughly 1400), Shakespeare (roughly 1600), and Austen (roughly 1800). The first writes in almost a foreign language. You need a glossery for every line and things like pronouns are all wrong. Shakespeare seems much less archaic, but his writing is far enough from the English of today to be difficult and easily misunderstood. There are many modern words Austen doesn't use, but the words she uses are all familiar and one can read her without thinking much about the differences in language. Except for the addition of vocabulary to describe new things, the changes in the last 200 years strike me as far less radical than those in either of the two prior 200-year periods.

Paul Turner

I have to agree with Paul here about the changes in human language. Also notice on Futurama, Amy Wong replaces our common "Duh", with either "Buh" or "Guh".

Maniak

After reading numerous follow ups on this, I think y'all are reading a bit too much into this.

I think it's just that the folks who made the show didn't get a voice actress fluent in chinese to do Amy's voice.

On Fri, 14 May 1999 16:54:08 GMT, [email] (Bruce James Robert Linley) wrote:

In article ,

Really, you don't say? Whatever gave you that impression? ;)

And what kind of Fans would we be if we took an explanation like that at face value without even trying to rationalize it?

As far as I know, Lauren Tom is of Asian descent. Does anyone know where she is from and what language(s) she is likely to speak?

---Splat

Sunny Wong wrote in message news:[email]...

In alt.tv.futurama, on the "Re: Amy Wong cussing" thread, Splat wrote:

Maybe Yiddish and Hebrew. On "The Chevy Chase Show," she mentioned growing up in or near a Jewish neighborhood.

How many years of therapy were needed to recover from watching "The Chevy Chase Show"? Although, being on that show does explain her being somewhat incomprehensible at times. I saw the premier and thought Vogon Poetry would be preferable. (I still liked him in Vacation though.)

Benjamin Robinson wrote in message news:[email]...

she

growing

[email]

decide