Is this the future of the English language?

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Personally I see evolution as something changing for the better. Text speak is not evolution of the language.

 

@Cap'n CJ: Yep...text speak is the grammatical equivalent of tying up women and burning them alive at the stake (sp??)...

 

Since when did the issue become about creativity? Text-speak doesn't have anything to do with creativity in the negative sense-- if anything, it improves it IMO (ex. finding ways to spell the same word differently, etc). I belive this debate is centered primarily on how text-speak should NOT be used in exams (ok, so MOST of us think this), because of its negative effect upon the complex and articulate aspects of our language. Creativity is not an issue here.

 

Then I really wonder whether you think Darwinian evolution is considered "better" by any means, since that sort of evolution is a matter of adaptation to certain pressures.

Speaking of which, I am wondering if text-speak is a sort of adaptation to a world where communication (esp. on the internet, but I guess also on cell phones now) has to be quick and there's not a way to communicate ideas efficiently, e.g. if you have to text message someone in the span of a message. Hence, words and messages get abbreviated -- "television" becomes "TV", "of course" becomes 'def", etc.

Of course, this also implies that you shouldn't use text-speak in other scenarios, where you have more time and less urgency and can therefore communicate ideas with, I suppose, greater nuance. But whether text-speak the same complexity and nuance, of, say, ebonics or the Queen's English is debatable. (For that matter, I believe it has been argued that ebonics is just as complex and internally consistent as the Queen's English -- it's quirk of how we're able to create and absorb language as children, it eeems.)

 

I have always wondered why people feel the need to write "u" instead of "you" etc. It isn't easier to type, it isn't faster - all it does is confuse the receiving end and show that you can't apprehend a language and use it properly. It is like writing English with German grammar - you would have to decipher what is written.

But as other people said, it is okay for personal notes. And it is also okay if you use it while writing an assignment or essay, as long as you take the time to change it to proper English.

But if students begin using this as an excuse not to learn English, then that is where I see the real problem.

But if this becomes acceptable on an international basis, I will begin talking like a Smurf.

I smurfed with this Smurf, while smurfing the smurf in the smurf.

And for proper conduct, here is a translation: I talked with this guy, while frying the bacon in the kitchen.

 

Grammar is the structure of the English language. If we take it away, we will have nothing more then a string of nonsence syllables.
@ Tassadar: English is Global, but I think French is spoken as a main language in more countries

 

Actually, French is far down the list, with English well over it.

Here is a rough list.

 

Am I the only young person who can't make any sense from the majority of text speak? When I get messages from my younger sisters, I can barely understand them. It's like monkey gibberish...

 

Yeah. It also makes me wonder what's the deal with people putting "u" in normal sentences. That people communicate like that saddens me, but the way some will make effort specifically to make their language more bizarre to the reader's eye is close to pissing me off. Not trying to be understood is already rude, but trying not to be understood is just awful.

Or imagine someone wants you to spend at least a couple of minutes thinking about game advice, but he can't give you the time needed to place a couple of full stops or question marks. What kind of message does it send? "My time is too precious to be wasted on making my request for ten times more of your time understandable?" Or maybe, "I want you to help me, a complete stranger, but I can't be arsed to make myself understood?"

Sometimes I wonder, however, if some people don't actually have an easier time understanding a message completely devoid of punctuation, including capital letters and full stops, than they have with normal language.

 

I still don't see how using text gibberish when texting is faster. I think it is miles faster to use proper words, because they are already in the cellphone's dictionary so require far less key strokes than having to painstakingly manually type in fake words that the phone (quite rightly) does not understand.

 

Well, I can see how u rather than you will be simpler and faster (it's just the last letter of the word), especially seeing as it's easy to understand (the letter is pronounced the same as the word). It's some of the other examples that get messed up, like putting in a ph instead of an f; for example, phear. There is no way that could possibly be quicker to type, and it only hurts understanding. And then there's ph34r, where the 3 is supposed to be a backwards E and the 4 is supposed to look like a capital A. How is that ANY sort of convenient? But moreover, it doesn't look anything like the original word it's supposed to represent, even sounding it out.

 

To get back on the original topic -- I think you're not so much talking about text-speak as you are l33t speak.

The way I keep seeing it, text-speak is just very abbreviated written text. Going on that, I don't have a lot of problem with a lot of abbreviations I see a lot in my/classmates'/professors' notes, e.g. v. = very; sth. = something; smn. = someone; three dots = therefore.

For the sake of brevity, convenience, and urgency -- I just don't see a problem with it. I think I would rather have someone communicating to me what movie he wants to see with "lets go c MI3" instead of being late to the movies because he spent two minutes typing out his message.

Disclaimer -- I don't text message people a lot, so there might be something with the technology that I've just missed.

 

Text speak or leet speak or whatever seems to me more like a written sociolect than a step in the evolution ladder of language. You might as well allow the use of every other slang that's indecipherable to others - in fact you should, if you're going to allow this one.

There's a time and a place for everything. Schoolwork should focus on understandability.

Descriptive linguistics describes how it is. Prescriptive linguistics prescribes how it should be.

 

Correct/incorrent belongs to "should be", but standard/non-standard belongs to "is", as it is easily verifiable with one's senses. In other words, to judge if someone's language is correct, you must compare it with how it should be, but to judge if it's standard or not, you need to compare his language with other people's. And that's exactly what descriptive linguistics is about.

 

Abbreviations and acronyms are one thing. L33t/text speak is another. I don't have a problem shortening every word in a sentence with a period in the middle or skipping vowels. But quasi-phonetic "R u my 8er?" kind of talk is just a barbaric approach to the written language.

 

It's silly to take the evolution of something as important as the style of language to the level of "text-speak" used by a bunch of kids using cell phones. The Modern Language Association (or MLA) is the agency that oversees the style, punctuation and documentation of sources for most scholarly documemnts in many schools and universities. And I have used the Chicago Manual of Style on occasion, or when its use was requested by a professor.

Writing is a craft and a discipline; the action of writing requires careful thought, not only to the words, but how they interact with each other in a sentence, paragraph, or essay. Even the creative act of writing a novel, or short story requires careful attention to the flow of words and language in all its array and diverse parts.

Writers shape, give contour and texture in differing modes of structure to their work in much the same way that sculptors work with stone, or musicians work with scales. Would you ask a musician to write music without the knowledge or proper use of scales?

Language is more than just communication or expression, for it also provides meaning. But to understand what is "meant" by language, one has to have a grasp of basics upon which we can all agree, so that meaning can be communicated with clarlity and precision. Otherwise, as HB points out, it's all just "gibberish," which is the exact opposite of language.

http://www.mla.org/style

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html

 

Simply determining what is standard and what's a certain dialect or sociolect or even idiolect is descriptive. If you're attaching value to one over the other, if you're making standard a goal, for instance, that's prescriptive.

If there are people who understand it, it's not gibberish. It's just that schools need to use the kind of language that everybody can understand.

 

Descriptive linguistics is not an art for its own sake and it's natural that the results of surveys and comparisons will be used to facilitate communication.

Everyone understands, "I have never went to school," or, "I don't need no education." Is it not gibberish, though?