Martian language
Encyclopedia
“Martian language” is the nickname of unconventional representation of Chinese
characters online. “Martian” describes that which seems strange to local culture. The term was popularised by a line from the 2001 Hong Kong comedy Shaolin Soccer
, in which Sing (Stephen Chow
) tells Mui (Zhao Wei
): "Go back to Mars, the Earth is so dangerous."
In the 2006 Taiwanese national College Entrance Examination
, students were asked to interpret symbols and phrases written in "Martian language" (orz), and the controversies which followed forced the testing center to abandon the practice in future exams.
In 2007, Martian language began to catch on in mainland China. The first adopters of Martian language mainly consisted of after-ninety (those born in the 1990s) netizens. They use it in their nicknames, short messages, and chat rooms in order to demonstrate personality differences. Later, they found that their teachers and parents could hardly figure out their new language, which quickly became their secret code to communicate with each other.
The Martian language became so popular in cyberspace that even some pieces of software were created to translate between Chinese and Martian language.
Chinese online bloggers followed up the trend to use Martian language, because they found that their blog posts written in the new language can easily pass Internet censorship engines, which are currently based on text-matching techniques.
For example, the 星 in 火星文 huoxingwen (星 is literally "star"; 火星 is "Planet Mars") can be replaced by "☆", a Unicode symbol that visually represents an actual star. 的 is commonly replaced with の, as it has the same intended meaning in Japanese. 火 can become 吙 just by adding a 口 radical, which alters very little in terms of sound (but changes the meaning), and visually maintains the 火 image. In the same principle, 文 wen, language can be replaced with 魰 by adding a 鱼 fish radical, which makes the character still look similar. Also, 的 is sometimes replaced with "d" due to its sound, as with 比 being replaced with "b"; Cyrillic can be used in a similar manner. Martian language and brain-disabled characters
overlap with one another; however, BDC only includes Chinese characters and nothing else, while Martian language incorporates BDC, as well as scripts such as Cyrillic, Hiragana, Bopomofo, SMS, and others.
:
鑑玗譵仌權菂憮眡龢衊眎魢導緻埜蠻曓珩，這些曓荇激怒孒仌蘱嘚哴惢，
鑒玗怼ー個亻亽亯絠唁轮啝ィ訁卬垍甴倂浼予恐懼龢匱乏d迣琾魡朌朢，巳陂鍹佈蒍普通秂泯dě樶縞願朢，
鑑玗儰駛亽頛вμ緻廹朩嘚巳鋌侕赱險濧曓政龢壓廹琎荇販頖，絠鉍楆鉂秂權綬琺治d褓鹱。。。
鉴于对人权的无视和蔑视已导致野蛮暴行，这些暴行激怒了人类的良心，
鉴于对一个人人享有言论和信仰自由并免予恐惧和匮乏的世界的盼望，已被宣布为普通人民的最高愿望，
鉴于为使人类不致迫不得已铤而走险对暴政和压迫进行反叛，有必要使人权受法治的保护。
jiàn yú duì rén quán de wú shì hé miè shì yǐ dǎo zhì yě mán bào xíng, zhè xiē bào xíng jī nù le rén lèi de liáng xīn,
jiàn yú duì yī gè rén rén xiǎng yǒu yán lùn hé xìn yǎng zì yóu bìng miǎn yǔ kǒng jù hé kuì fá de shì jiè de pàn wàng, yǐ bèi xuān bù wèi pǔ tōng rén mín de zuì gāo yuàn wàng,
jiàn yú wèi shǐ rén lèi bù zhì pò bù dé yǐ tǐng ér zǒu xiǎn duì bào zhèng hé yā pò jìn xíng fǎn pàn, yǒu bì yào shǐ rén quán shòu fǎ zhì de bǎo hù...
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations...
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
characters online. “Martian” describes that which seems strange to local culture. The term was popularised by a line from the 2001 Hong Kong comedy Shaolin Soccer
Shaolin Soccer
Shaolin Soccer is a 2001 Hong Kong comedy film co-written, directed by and starring Stephen Chow. A former Shaolin monk reunites his five brothers, years after their master's death, to apply their superhuman martial arts skills to play soccer and bring Shaolin kung fu to the masses.In 2008 a...
, in which Sing (Stephen Chow
Stephen Chow
Stephen Chow Sing-Chi is a Hong Kong actor, comedian, screenwriter, film director and producer.- Professional career :Stephen Chow began as a temporary actor for TVB. He entered TVB in early 1980s, and was trained there, although he had few opportunities to appear in films. Chow graduated from...
) tells Mui (Zhao Wei
Zhao Wei
Zhao Wei is a mainland Chinese film actress and pop singer. Audiences sometimes refer to her by her English name, Vicki Zhao...
): "Go back to Mars, the Earth is so dangerous."
In the 2006 Taiwanese national College Entrance Examination
National College Entrance Examination
The National Higher Education Entrance Examination, or commonly known as Gao Kao, is an academic examination held annually in the mainland of the People's Republic of China. This examination is a prerequisite for entrance into almost all higher education institutions at the undergraduate level...
, students were asked to interpret symbols and phrases written in "Martian language" (orz), and the controversies which followed forced the testing center to abandon the practice in future exams.
In 2007, Martian language began to catch on in mainland China. The first adopters of Martian language mainly consisted of after-ninety (those born in the 1990s) netizens. They use it in their nicknames, short messages, and chat rooms in order to demonstrate personality differences. Later, they found that their teachers and parents could hardly figure out their new language, which quickly became their secret code to communicate with each other.
The Martian language became so popular in cyberspace that even some pieces of software were created to translate between Chinese and Martian language.
Chinese online bloggers followed up the trend to use Martian language, because they found that their blog posts written in the new language can easily pass Internet censorship engines, which are currently based on text-matching techniques.
General aspects
The Martian language is written from Chinese by means of various substitution methods. Just like in l33t, where the letter "e" is replaced by the number "3", in Martian, standard Chinese characters are replaced with substandard ones, or foreign scripts. For each Chinese character, it may be replaced it with:- A character which is a homophone
- A character which looks similar
- A character with a similar radicalRadical (Chinese character)A Chinese radical is a component of a Chinese character. The term may variously refer to the original semantic element of a character, or to any semantic element, or, loosely, to any element whatever its origin or purpose...
- A character with the same or similar meaning
- The Latin alphabetLatin alphabetThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
, Cyrillic, HiraganaHiraganais a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...
, BopomofoBopomofoZhuyin fuhao , often abbreviated as zhuyin and colloquially called bopomofo, was introduced in the 1910s as the first official phonetic system for transcribing Chinese, especially Mandarin....
, KatakanaKatakanais a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...
, IPA, uncommon unicode symbols, Hanyu Pinyin, SMS languageSMS languageSMS language or textese is a term for the abbreviations and slang most commonly used due to the necessary brevity of mobile phone text messaging, in particular the widespread SMS SMS language or textese (also known as txt-speak, txtese, chatspeak, txt, txtspk, txtk, txto, texting language, txt...
, etc.
For example, the 星 in 火星文 huoxingwen (星 is literally "star"; 火星 is "Planet Mars") can be replaced by "☆", a Unicode symbol that visually represents an actual star. 的 is commonly replaced with の, as it has the same intended meaning in Japanese. 火 can become 吙 just by adding a 口 radical, which alters very little in terms of sound (but changes the meaning), and visually maintains the 火 image. In the same principle, 文 wen, language can be replaced with 魰 by adding a 鱼 fish radical, which makes the character still look similar. Also, 的 is sometimes replaced with "d" due to its sound, as with 比 being replaced with "b"; Cyrillic can be used in a similar manner. Martian language and brain-disabled characters
Brain-disabled characters
The name brain-disabled characters represents the Internet slang used by some after-ninety netizens . For this, the after-ninety generation has a disparaging name as brain-disabled people. These kind of characters can be usually seen in user names or signatures of some after-ninety netizens in...
overlap with one another; however, BDC only includes Chinese characters and nothing else, while Martian language incorporates BDC, as well as scripts such as Cyrillic, Hiragana, Bopomofo, SMS, and others.
Chinese
From the Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human RightsUniversal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...
:
Martian language
鑑於薱朲蘱傢庭葰烠宬員啇懙笙椇婡旳繜嚴忣祺鮃等啇啝bú迻嘚權利ㄖㄅ承認，迺湜卋琾臫凷、㊣礒與龢鮃啇基礎，鑑玗譵仌權菂憮眡龢衊眎魢導緻埜蠻曓珩，這些曓荇激怒孒仌蘱嘚哴惢，
鑒玗怼ー個亻亽亯絠唁轮啝ィ訁卬垍甴倂浼予恐懼龢匱乏d迣琾魡朌朢，巳陂鍹佈蒍普通秂泯dě樶縞願朢，
鑑玗儰駛亽頛вμ緻廹朩嘚巳鋌侕赱險濧曓政龢壓廹琎荇販頖，絠鉍楆鉂秂權綬琺治d褓鹱。。。
Simplified Chinese
鉴于对人类家庭所有成员的与生俱来的尊严及其平等的和不移的权利的承认，乃是世界自由、正义与和平的基础，鉴于对人权的无视和蔑视已导致野蛮暴行，这些暴行激怒了人类的良心，
鉴于对一个人人享有言论和信仰自由并免予恐惧和匮乏的世界的盼望，已被宣布为普通人民的最高愿望，
鉴于为使人类不致迫不得已铤而走险对暴政和压迫进行反叛，有必要使人权受法治的保护。
Hanyu Pinyin
jiàn yú duì rén lèi jiā tíng suǒ yǒu chéng yuán de yǔ shēng jù lái de zūn yán jí qí píng děng de hé bù yí de quán lì de chéng rèn, nǎi shì shì jiè zì yóu, zhèng yì yǔ hé píng de jī chǔ,jiàn yú duì rén quán de wú shì hé miè shì yǐ dǎo zhì yě mán bào xíng, zhè xiē bào xíng jī nù le rén lèi de liáng xīn,
jiàn yú duì yī gè rén rén xiǎng yǒu yán lùn hé xìn yǎng zì yóu bìng miǎn yǔ kǒng jù hé kuì fá de shì jiè de pàn wàng, yǐ bèi xuān bù wèi pǔ tōng rén mín de zuì gāo yuàn wàng,
jiàn yú wèi shǐ rén lèi bù zhì pò bù dé yǐ tǐng ér zǒu xiǎn duì bào zhèng hé yā pò jìn xíng fǎn pàn, yǒu bì yào shǐ rén quán shòu fǎ zhì de bǎo hù...
English translation
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations...
See also
- SMS languageSMS languageSMS language or textese is a term for the abbreviations and slang most commonly used due to the necessary brevity of mobile phone text messaging, in particular the widespread SMS SMS language or textese (also known as txt-speak, txtese, chatspeak, txt, txtspk, txtk, txto, texting language, txt...
- Heavy metal umlautHeavy metal umlautA metal umlaut is a diaeresis that is sometimes used gratuitously or decoratively over letters in the names of hard rock or heavy metal bands—for example those of Mötley Crüe and Motörhead...
- Orz
- Internet slangInternet slangInternet slang is a type of slang that Internet users have popularized, and in many cases, have coined. Such terms often originate with the purpose of saving keystrokes. Many people use the same abbreviations in texting and instant messaging, and social networking websites...
- LeetLeetLeet , also known as eleet or leetspeak, is an alternative alphabet for the English language that is used primarily on the Internet. It uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters...
- Education in the Republic of ChinaEducation in the Republic of ChinaThe educational system in Taiwan is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education of Republic of China . The system in the ROC produces pupils with some of the highest test scores in the world, especially in mathematics and science. It has been criticised for placing excessive pressure on...
- MojibakeMojibake, from the Japanese 文字 "character" + 化け "change", is the occurrence of incorrect, unreadable characters shown when computer software fails to render text correctly according to its associated character encoding.-Causes:...
- GibberishGibberishGibberish is a generic term in English for talking that sounds like speech, but carries no actual meaning. This meaning has also been extended to meaningless text or gobbledygook. The common theme in gibberish statements is a lack of literal sense, which can be described as a presence of nonsense...
- Brain-disabled charactersBrain-disabled charactersThe name brain-disabled characters represents the Internet slang used by some after-ninety netizens . For this, the after-ninety generation has a disparaging name as brain-disabled people. These kind of characters can be usually seen in user names or signatures of some after-ninety netizens in...