Martian language
unconventional representation of Chinese characters online
Martian language (Chinese: 火星文; pinyin: huǒxīng wén; lit. 'Martian script'), sometimes also called brain-disabled characters (simplified Chinese: 脑残体; traditional Chinese: 腦殘體; pinyin: nǎocán tǐ), is the nickname of unconventional representation of Chinese characters online by various methods. For example, "一個人的時候" (yīgèréndeshíhòu, "When one is alone") can be changed into "ㄧㄍ人ㄉ時候" since the word ㄍ (gē) is consonant of 個 and the word ㄉ (dē) is consonant of the word 的 in bopomofo.
Origin
The etymology of the word, "Martian language", is mostly believed to come 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."
Martian language originated in Taiwan with the introduction of Chinese input methods and online games. It later began to catch on in mainland China when online games like Audition Online were introduced in China.
General aspects
Similarly to leet, where certain Latin letters are replaced by numerals (such as "3" for "e"), Martian language replaces standard Chinese characters with nonstandard or foreign characters. Each Chinese character may be replaced with:
A character that is a (quasi-) homophone, either from Standard Chinese, Chinese dialects, or foreign languages.
A character that looks similar, such as one with a shared radical.
A character with identical or similar meaning.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Martian language” is unconventional representation of Chinese characters online. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Martian, language and unconventional, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6774739. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “Martian language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.