My Observations on the Ever-Changing English Language

In August 2013, Oxford Dictionary added "selfie" to their online dictionary. Not only that, they made it the Word of the Year for 2013! This is incredible considering selfie wasn't even in the average person's vocabulary in late 2012! How did this happen?

Well, we can thank the internet. The advancement of the internet allows words to be created and grow exponentially in a matter of weeks. This was definitely the case.

So with this new way of communication, how are languages, English in particular, being affected?

1.) Texting Lingo - This is a topic that is often laughed upon, due to its childish stigma. People older than 18 often giggle when they here someone exclaim "LOL" and "OMG" in a spoken conversation. However, the truth of it is, texting lingo being used in everyday speech is becoming more and more common! Terms such as "BRB" (be right back) are now common speech, for many of the same reasons they were popularised in texting! They are shorter than writing out the full expression ("I'll be right back") as well as taking up less characters (3 compared to 13)! -- Characteristics of Texting Lingo

Some things I've noticed about texting lingo include:

a) It's becoming more prevalent in spoken conversation. I'm not only talking exclusively about abbreviations either! I'm also talking about words that were actually born online! Terms like "selfie", "bae". "feels" and countless other words are now used in everyday speech to describe new concepts and ideas that have been popularised within the new generation! It just shows how quickly new concepts and words are being spawned and accepted into our language.

b) Texting abbrevations are becoming more prevalent! These abbrevations are either literal abbrevations (brb for be right back) while others are simply words that have their vowels removed (srsly for seriously)!

To expand on letter B, if these kinds of abbrevations become more popular, it could reshape English as we know it today!

I'll show you:

Read this sentence: I a ea i ee ou oe ee ae ii.

Impossible right?

Now read this sentence: I cn rd ths evn thgh sm lttrs r mssng.

Could you decipher the message? Suprisingly (or maybe not), the sentence that removes the consonants from the sentence is nearly impossible to read! However the one that omits the vowels is still semi-readable! Could this common method of removing vowels to shorten a message carry over from the internet to writing in general?

{Fun fact: Most works of literature (or general writing) in Hebrew omits vowels entirely, because native Hebrew speakers do not need the vowel to distinguish words! They only nee context.)

So overall, the new generation has allowed for the rapid addition of new, creative, and inventive words and concepts to flood our dictionaries! It has all sped up the development of Moderne English, which is adapting to the global language landscape!

~~~Thanks for reading!

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