Link to screen cap.. It’s entirely possibly that it’s just meaningless scribbles.
I think it’s handwritten Japanese (I see a few kana in there*). I always have difficulty with handwritten kanji because some of the strokes are, shall we say, elided. So probably a native speaker/reader will have to come in to translate it.
Some context might help, where did you come across this?
*On second viewing, I’m not so sure those are kana, but if they are characters I have no clue what they might be.
I thought I saw some hiragana in there but yeah they might be kanji/Chinese that are similar to hiragana. I’m not great at reading even well-written characters though.
I will say it’s not just scribbles, I know that much.
Definitely Chinese, not Japanese. (If it were Japanese I’d be able to read it…)
I studied Chinese when I was younger, but while I can read a couple of characters in the picture, the rest just looks wrong. It may be that it’s simplified Chinese in which case I’m as dumb as the next guy. I can’t even count the strokes to look it up in my english-chinese dictionatry.
I can’t make sense of it fully, just random phrases here and there. As far as I can tell, it’s traditional Chinese, used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. I think you read it top to bottom, right to left, so you start in the upper right, read down, move left one column and read down, etc.
1st column: 境況來得是人性的 (what comes from situations… belongs to human nature??)
2nd column: 晴房中的飛鳥 (a flying bird in a clear room??)
3rd column: 我比自己想像一般 (I’m more ordinary than I think)
the rest is too hard to read…
Maybe lyrics or poetry?
It’s very sloppily written and you wouldn’t be able to count the strokes. Most of the characters are haphazardly drawn and you’d just have to guess at the characters based on context… almost like cursive.
It’s definitely Chinese and not Japanese. Chinese is traditional characters (which I kinda suck at).
OP - need some context before I ask some colleagues for help…
Well, I don’t want to give it away to influence the translation, but it was from an old sci-fi TV program, and this writing purportedly had something to do with a curse. I’ll have to dig it up again to see how they translated it in the script, but I’m guessing they just took a bunch of random characters, and possibly some meaningless scribbles.
The last column ends with what appears to be
行屍走肉的人物 / zombified person
Which could make sense with the context.
Another vote for “it’s Chinese Hanzi for sure, but hell if I can read most of it nevermind translate the thing”
From the script:
“Being so much more than what I thought I was,
Beyond pain, darkness, and living death,
Beyond escape of body wretched,
On wings of thought I rise and soar unconquered,
Reaching out to touch the [minds?] of others, somewhere, somehow.”
For reference. It starts around 10:31. [The person in make-up translating is none other than Christina ‘Daughter Dearest’ Crawford in her last acting role.]
I grew up speaking Chinese (but didn’t get very good at it). I do know this language is not modern/colloquial. Bits and pieces of it make sense, so either it’s deliberately archaic or just poorly translated… I don’t know enough to say.
情況來得是人性的 (the situation here is human nature)
像晴房中的飛鳥 (like a bird in a clear room)
我比自己想像一般 (i’m more normal than i thought)
超然超出里中的 (beyond the transcendent/supernatural)
?行屍走肉的人物 (??? zombie characters)
I’m leaning towards poorly translated. It does not sound archaic to me, and as you say there are bits and pieces that fit. It does seem to be written by someone who knows Chinese, though, despite the poor handwriting. Someone who’s just copying characters would not write like that.
Thanks, everyone.
I’m intrigued by your quest/question, so lemme get this straight: this piece of chinese writing appaered in a TV show and was translated very eloquently. So you wanted to find out if that really was what it read or just chinese looking gibberish, right?
Two questions:
- why?
- what have you learnt from the answers so far?
Yep.
I’ll answer 2) first: I learned that some of the characters have a passing resemblance to some of the script. I suspect that the script was written, and the writers asked someone with at least some knowledge of Chinese to write some more or less random characters, since in the early 1970s, the chance that anyone would be able to actually see it long enough to read it would have been only slightly north of zero.
And 1): Interesting question. I’ve noticed that you’ve contributed a fair amount of mostly useful info to GQ in your short time here. . . but apparently I’m the first person you’ve asked why I was asking a question. Because I wanted to know, which is usually the reason any of us post in GQ.
But thanks again, everyone.
As the Effin’ Hall Monitor used to say, “Asked and answered.”
Thank you for these quick and to the point answers. Reading back my own post I realized that it may have sounded like I was criticising you, but I assure you I was interested in your answers for real. And a little surprised you already seem satisfied. I for one would really like to hear more from an expert or native speaker, like China guy’s colleagues… but maybe thats just me
Whenever I come across some foreign language used as a prop in a movie, I typically post a question here if I can’t find an answer already posted online–just to see whether there was an attempt to have the writing somewhat meaningful to the plot or whether it might translate to something like ‘Meaningless writing–Yankee never know difference.’
I posted a question a couple of years back on something similar from the 1965 movie "None but the Brave, but unfortunately the screen cap quality was not sufficient to get any meaningful information, so I’ll have to try that one again next time I have the opportunity.
Plot twist: In your earlier years you worked as a Chinese movie prop writer, but a then-undiagnosed degenerative brain disease caused you to slowly lose your grasp of the language, and eventually, your memory of ever having made them.
Decades later, your grandchildren find your old posts, get the screenshots automatically translated on their phones, and astoundingly find all the props signed “伯爵蛇臀圍塔克”.