| chat., China | huo xing wen | марсианский язык (The language dates back to at least 2004. Its use appears to have begun among young people in Taiwan for online chatting, and then it spread to the mainland. The characters randomly combine, split, and rebuild traditional Chinese characters, Japanese characters, pinyin, and sometimes English and kaomoji, a mixture of symbols that conveys an emotion. It's not an easy language to master – the same Chinese character can have more than one Martian counterpart. The language has online translation tools. Young Chinese adopted the language not only because it was new and cool but also because it was incomprehensible to parents, teachers and internet censors. Alex_Odeychuk) |
