Martian language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the hypothetical language that extraterrestrial beings (such as Martians) would use, see Alien language.
Martian language (Chinese: 火星文; pinyin: huo xing wen; literally "the language of Martians") is a term to describe words beyond common knowledge in the Chinese speaking cyberspace. The term was populated by a quote from the movie Shaolin Soccer, in which Stephen Chow told Zhao Wei: "Go back to the Mars, the Earth is so dangerous.". Since then, people who seem strange to local culture are often called Martians in cyberspace[1], and strange Internet slang words are often called words in the Martian language.
In the 2006 Taiwanese national College Entrance Examination, students were asked to interpret symbols and phrases written in "Martian language" (orz)[2], and the controversies followed forced the testing center to abandon the practice in future exams[3].
[edit] References
- ^ . For example, when commenting on the possible blocking of Hotmail, one is quoted as "I can only conclude that the person in charge of this is considering it from a Martian point of view." [1].
- ^ "Martian language" banned in Taiwanese college entrance exam
- ^ Exam body agrees to omit 'Martian' from college exam
