Language and Humor Blog

You probably know about English speakers’ netspeak/IM speak/textspeak, such as LOL for laughing out loud (and for Australians, m8 for mate). If you’ve read my post Spanish texting / IM abbreviations, you know about Spanish speakers’ usage, such as l100to [l ciento to] for lo siento (“I’m sorry,” “im sry”).

Now it’s time for Chinese Internet slang, also known as “Martian language” (火星文 Huo3xing1wen2).

• They use text as pictures, such as the orz of 3Q得orz.
  • The orz is from Japanese Internet usage. The form orz represents a person in profile who is so disappointed over failure (or now in Taiwan and Mainland China: so awed by admiration) as to fall on his or her hands and knees. The “o” is the head; “r” is the the shoulders, back and arm; and “z” is the curves of the butt and bent legs (illustrations).
  • 3Q means “thank you.” San1 (三 “three”) + Q approximates the sound of “thank you.”
  • The 得 (de5) is a grammar particle that links the verb thank to its adverb manner phrase (“prostrate before someone,” “with great admiration”).
  • Thus, 3Q得orz represents 感谢得五体投地 (gan3xie4 de5 wu3ti3tou2di4, “thank you with great admiration”).
• They use homophones and near homophones, such as the Arabic numeral 4 (四 si4, “four”) for 死 (si3, “to die”) or for 是 (shi4, “yes”).
• They use characters that contain the intended character, such as 饿 (e4, “hungry”) for 我 (wo3, “I”/”me”) because the former contains the latter as a phonetic element (in Ancient Chinese pronunciation), plus a meaning element of “food.”
• They break up Chinese characters into separate pieces. Instead of the character 强 (qiang2, “strong”), they type the two characters 弓 and 虽 (gong1, “archery bow” + sui1, “although”). Another example: instead of the character 顶 (ding3, “summit”), they write the separate characters 丁 and 页 (ding1, “fourth in a series” + ye4, “page of a book”).

American parents mostly try to figure out their kids’ abbreviations and some numbers or combinations of characters substituting for letters (leetspeak such as 3 for E or “/\/\” for M). Chinese and Japanese parents must be really lost. Perhaps they’re falling prostrate in despair.