Month: March 2005

EL teachers may faint after reading this article, but this is what linguists are saying:

“The Internet is fostering new kinds of creativity through language,” said David Crystal, a historian of language at the University of Wales in the United Kingdom. “It’s the beginning of a new stage in the evolution of the written language and a new motivation for child and adult literacy.”

What’s Net/Webspeak? Just to quote a few:
lol, brb, bfn, ttyl, wb …
For more example, check it out here.
Not meant to encourage or promote the use of netspeak, but throughout history, language is changing and adding/removing elements from itself. This is a natural process brought about by users of the language. There is no way to stop this, try introducing a law that says “We ban the use of this this this and that that word with effect from 1st Apr 2005. Violators will be fined $xyz.” Not meant to be an April’s fool joke, but it simply will not work.
Think of it from another perspective, if there is a ‘need’ to introduce changes to a language, wat does it signify? It only means that the language in its existing form is not effective or efficient to communicate certain ideas! If everyone knows what is “rotfl”, why do I need to say the full form? One may argue that “But I don’t understand”, well, to look at it from one perspective, netspeak is hindering communication, but from another perspective, should one just say “I dont know” and stop there? NO! What’s life-long learning about anyway.
There’s so much to talk about when language/linguistics is concened, until another time bah … 🙂
Spawn this post after reading about this off [slashdot]