Voyager Spacecraft carries a greeting in Hokkien-Minnan-Taiwanese dialect

Very cool, Art! Listening to the Mandarin version I found that I am still not fully accustomed with the broad usage of "玩" 有空请到这来玩! Yes, dear 外星小朋友， if you have some free time at hand, come visit our house to play. I might even show you my new toy railroad.

Hehe... that was an awesome recording, Art. The woman sounded strangely like my grandma when she was a little bit younger. I should get my mom to say this phrase when she meets our friends from outer space!

Henning and Pulosm, I just heard the Mandarin and Wu greetings. The Mandarin greeting “各位都好吧。我们都很想念你们。有空请到这儿来玩。“ is friendly but not as friendly as the Amoy (Minnan) version which started the greeting with "Have you eaten yet?" :) As for the Wu greeting, it's only five words. I can make out the last three words: "大家好。“ Now if I only know Akkadian and Sumerian.... Wikipedia's Minnan entry has this Voyager-greeting transcription: "(The voyager clip says: Thài-khong pêng-iú, lín-hó. Lín chia̍h-pá bē? Ū-êng, to̍h lâi gún chia chē ô·! 太空朋友，恁好。恁食飽未？有閒著來阮遮坐哦!)", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_Nan

artkho, how different is this from Taiwanese, because I would think in Taiwanese you would say (and excuse my attempt to phoneticize using pinyin). "li ho, li jia beng bo?" Wa mm zai ya!!! (我無知影)

Taiwanese is essentially Minnan/Hokkien.

Henning, I think the biggest problem is when she says "我们都很想念你们"...this sounds creepy. It sounds like "we all really miss you" ....is that what they are trying to say by "thinking of you"??? I wonder how they chose the languages used. There aren't that many, really, so it's kind of random. Though, Armenian (Western dialect) is on there, but the woman reading it sounds like she doesn't get it. Like, who are these nutjobs that asked me to read record this crazy greeting to "those who exist in the universe." And the "Greek" is ancient Greek, not even modern!!! Who knows, though, maybe the space people came here long ago and that'd be the best bet for communicating with them. They need to put up Ancient Egyptian and Mayan, because you know space people helped them build that stuff. It's too coincidental to be all human effort. Okay, I need to calm down.

nevermind, the "be" I get...but I'm stil puzzled by the "jia ba" part...

jia ba literally means eat to a full stomach, or eat enough.

Never mind, again, I figured it out. "jia ba bei" is "吃饱了没" Duh. Sorry. It's been a while. Speaking of eating, I will attempt to make up for my stupidity and serial posting with the following antecdote: When I first got to Taiwan (after being in Beijing), I went to the bank (actually, it was the post office) to put money in my account. I read the numbers off my account and when I said "yao" for all the "one's", the woman helping me said (this is my translation), "In Taiwan, we don't use 'yao', 'yao' is only for the Mainland, because unlike those living under China's communist system, we here in Taiwan are not "yao'." It turns out, in Taiwanese, "yao" means "hungry." I never used it again. And that was my first taste of anti-China comedy in Taiwan.

Amoy is the same as Xiamen. Taiwanese and 厦门话 (Amoy language) are the same. Here's an explanation of the word Amoy: http://www.amoymagic.com/amoywhy.htm

Wait! I don't get it. So is this because the recording is in Amoy and not something else? Or am I totally wrong? I could understand what she was saying when I listened two or three times, but it sounded like "almost Taiwanese" to me, but not exactly. Why is it "jia pa" and not "jia beng", and "be" and not "bo"??