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Researchers Studying Texting as a Separate Language

eurekalert.org — “Instant messaging, or IM, is not just bad grammar or a bunch of mistakes, ” says Dr. Pamela Takayoshi, Kent State University associate professor of English. “IM is a separate language form from formal English and has a common set of language features and standards.”

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  • Soniti, on 05/02/2008, -1/+40No, this will not make it permissible to use on your English papers.
    • zephc, on 05/02/2008, -1/+14wtf? stfu!
      lulz jk
    • Aeaus, on 05/03/2008, -1/+12*sigh* Next thing we know chavs will become a legitimate "sub-culture" of polite society. After all, there's a set of formal rules and...
    • wildbillhick, on 05/03/2008, -0/+6Nor should you send your professor or TA an email with such "language"! When I read your emails, I do not LOL. I just get PO.
    • Hangly, on 05/03/2008, -0/+4Not yet, but I'll wager some of its features will become standard in the next 20-50 years. The acronym and the contraction started out the same way.
    • commenter01, on 05/03/2008, -1/+2God, It would be really pathetic if you had to take TXT 101
  • refreshers, on 05/02/2008, -3/+50I'd digg this but atm im gettin txtd by my bff jill
  • carve, on 05/02/2008, -1/+35That makes it a pidgin or creole- not a separate language.

    It is no more a separate language than using "&" for "and"
    • fkr3, on 05/03/2008, -3/+3I prefer the term retardish...
    • nationalist, on 05/03/2008, -0/+7pidgins and creoles are separate languages...
    • ParanoydAndroid, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2I'm not sure if I'd define IM as a separate language, but then again I'm not a linguist; however, I do know that it's certainly not a pidgin or a creole since the defining characteristic of pidgin and creole are that they are a _mixture_ of different languages, usually formed as a method to aid communication among a culturally diverse people in a geographic location. IM does not, at all, do that. My buddy list is bilingual (some spanish speakers, some english) and actually IM languages differ between languages, and harm the ability of someone to understand a language not their own. From basic things like, "jajaja" for spanish laughter to "k" meaning "OK" in English and "que" in Spanish, the whole structure of the informality makes cross-cultural understanding much more difficult.
      I would recommend in the future that you actually try to understand terminology, before your throw it out there so you can seem smarter than the guy who did the research.
    • Hangly, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1& is a stylized Latin Et.
  • xsquirrel378x, on 05/02/2008, -3/+16zomgwtfbbq
  • Hangly, on 05/02/2008, -2/+29I wrote a paper on that for a linguistics course back in 1994. My professor didn't know what the ***** and gave me a C.
  • Zlorp, on 05/02/2008, -2/+27its not a separate language, just a different way to spell said language.
    • BrainInAJar, on 05/03/2008, -1/+1If I could digg you up more than once, I would.

      Bad spelling != new language. The rules of grammar and vocabulary are identical to english, they just spell it weird.
      • ParanoydAndroid, on 05/03/2008, -1/+1That's demonstrably untrue. It would be perfectly acceptable to type, "I lolled" in an IM, but translated to english it would be, "I laugh out louded." Beyond that, emphasis plays an important part in a language. There was a study out that showed that people who learn Korean from birth tend to emphasize "inside/outside" dichotomies as opposed to native English speakers who emphasize, "on top/under." Similarly Spanish tends to focus on movement, direction, and location while English focuses on method of travel (e.g. english: "we drove to the mall," spanish: "We went to the mall (by car)."
        As the article states, IM language has a focus on meaning over form, and social relationships over content. That distinction is important, and (as a guess) is probably a sort of adaptation in a form of communication where emotional intent is easily misunderstood (similar to Digg's sadly necessary /sarcasm tags).
        Over time the different emphasis naturally leads to different grammar and word meanings.
    • Hangly, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2Someone clearly isn't a linguist. It's not a different language, but it is an interesting variation.

      There are grammatical features that distinguish it from standard English. For example, the use of HTML tags as punctuation, e.g.:
      < /sarcasm >
      < /rant >
      < /whining >

      You could even make an argument for it being a pidgin or a creole.
      • yamikaze, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2Agreed. Plus, the diversity of Indo-European languages can be traced back to common routes. Obviously they didn't just spring up overnight, but inched their way towards their present forms through mistakes and small variations. If given enough time, texting can branch off as another "legitimate" language.
  • Kenzan, on 05/02/2008, -4/+52Please, please, please don't even try to legitimize that *****.
    • Hangly, on 05/03/2008, -1/+5Languages evolve over time, legitimized or not.
      • zxjams, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1I can only imagine what texting would look like if we never lost "thou".
      • kimcheefreak17, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1Texting speak would be the devolution of the English language...
  • jjive, on 05/02/2008, -1/+15...and pig Latin is the future for hipster douches everywhere, Icksnae on the spray tanae.
  • BesideYouInTime, on 05/03/2008, -9/+2I cn hz chzbrgr?
  • TitoMB345, on 05/03/2008, -0/+25"form from formal English"

    Who else had to read that over again to make sure you got it right?
    • venicerocco, on 05/03/2008, -0/+9"form from formal" - glaring out from an article about language. Oh the irony
    • kupa, on 05/03/2008, -0/+4thank god I wasn't the only one. I thought I'd gone nuts or something.
    • wcaclimbing, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1so did I...... twice.
  • AriaStar, on 05/03/2008, -4/+9ORLY?
  • lordenlil, on 05/03/2008, -0/+15That's dumb. It's comparable to calling American English and British English different languages. The defining moment when a language becomes a "new" language is when it loses most 'mutual intelligibility' to its parent language. Shorthand and abbreviations found in texts and IM's is by no means not-intelligible to an English speaker.
    • Hangly, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2Linguists argue back and forth over what is and is not a separate language, but the debate is not "dumb."

      Australian and Indian Englishes might be mutually unintelligible (without exposure and practice,) but we call them the same language because they're written the same.
      At the same time, Western linguists insist Mandarin and Cantonese are different languages because the two are mutually unintelligible even though they are written (mostly) the same.

      Serbian and Croatian are usually classified as different languages even though the only major difference is in the writing. Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are classified as separate for the same reason.
      Egyptian and Eastern Arabic are both classified as "Arabic" even though they are very different.

      And so on, and so forth.

      texts and IM's would absolutely be unintelligible to an English speaker of 50 years ago. No less so than written Serbian is incomprehensible to a Croat who doesn't read Cyrillic.
      • lordenlil, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1While you are correct that there is some debate between experts as to what classifies a 'new' or 'different' language, the examples you cite are debated in terms of technical definitions. Meaning, they are being debated "after the fact". The broader, more conceptual understanding of a language and what makes similar languages different, comes down to what I said before.
        I said this is dumb because it is introducing conflict where conflict should not exist. According to the non-language-specific definition, English and "text-message English" are not different languages. At absolute most, they are different dialects of the same language.
        • lacronicus, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2That's exactly his point, at what point does a "dialect" become a completely separate language? The romance languages evolved directly from latin, and so, to some extent, are "dialects" based in latin, yet they are not even remotely considered the same language.
          • lordenlil, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1You are confusing two different concepts. The first is a dialect, the second is a language. British English and American English are two different dialects of the same language, because there is "mutual intelligibility", meaning, when Americans hear British people speak, or vice versa, almost everything is understood. There is definitely gray area in terms of mutual intelligibility, like Ladino and Spanish or Yiddish and German, but for the most part mutual intelligibility is pretty clear.
            The romance languages all originated in Rome, hence the name. There was a time when they were just many different dialects of Latin, but eventually, those dialects changed so much that they lost their mutual intelligibility. Now we have many different languages in the same group, and we call them the romance languages.
            With regards to the current article- my point is that there is near complete mutual intelligibility between text message abbreviations and clippings to spoken English. Keep in mind that spelling has absolutely no bearing with regards to language/linguistics, its only the sound. That being said, there is no conceivable reason for someone to call internet shorthand a new language. Again, at best it's a new dialect.
      • crocodilexp, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1I don't think writing systems are relevant at all -- writing is just a matter of encoding the spoken language. While it's officially unacceptable, Chinese can be written in lating characters (pinyin) with some loss of fidelity, and English may well phonetically be written in cyrillic.

        While some argue language itself is just an encoding, nobody has explained in detail what it's an encoding of, or had a way to access the underlying "text" it's supposedly encoding.

        I think the only relevant part is mutual intelligibility and it's a gradient, rather than a sharp divide. For example, for Serbian/Croatian, mutual intelligibility is close to 100% (compared to the baseline of two native speakers of the same language), where as for Serbian/Bulgarian for instance, it's 50% or so.

        Another interesting factor is getting "attuned to" a specific dialect/pronounciation. When it comes to variants of English (Indian/Australian you mentioned), it doesn't take long to get accustomed to the other one, and it's hardly a process of learning a new language.
  • shyboy2008, on 05/03/2008, -1/+17so does this mean I can put that I am bilingual on my resume?
    • Parkinsons, on 05/03/2008, -0/+11 C4N S[]D34|< 1337
    • Hangly, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1If you can understand leetspeak, African American Vernacular English, Indian English, Japanese katakan-ized English and Australian, you can call yourself multi-lingual.
  • AppleGeorge, on 05/03/2008, -6/+10Honestly, I can't stand the jackasses who don't type correctly. The annoying ass texting language is extremely annoying. If someone sends me a message, and it's crippled to hell, I tell them to come back when they can speak correctly. Most of my friends have become smarter from the numerous times I've told them to shut the hell up from typing like an idiot.
    • diblasio, on 05/03/2008, -2/+13You sound like a blast to hang out with!
      • kadaan, on 05/03/2008, -6/+3I'd much rather hang out with him than people too stupid/lazy to type out words so they can save one or two keystrokes.

        It's perfectly fine in a text message where you're typing with a numpad with a character limit. It is _never_ acceptable when you're sitting in front of your computer with a keyboard.
    • TheCoreh, on 05/03/2008, -2/+4'k.
    • xNarrowSoulx, on 05/03/2008, -2/+1Seconded. People expect respect when they can't write a single discernible word... They didn't put us through years of English class for nothing, damnit. It's to the point that if you don't talk like you're texting on term papers they put you in Honors English in my school...
  • rmeddy, on 05/03/2008, -3/+4Why are acknowledging this rubbish proto language.
    • catalysis, on 05/03/2008, -0/+3Me fail english? That's unpossible!
    • Clearmedium, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1wtf lrn2 make coherent sentences n006
  • KFantasy017, on 05/03/2008, -1/+8Ever heard of acronyms and abbreviations?
  • jmoo1, on 05/03/2008, -2/+14It took an associate professor of English and FOUR undergraduate researchers to study an abbreviated form of communication.
    Irony, anyone?
    • toppgun, on 05/03/2008, -1/+7those four undergrads did it just to put on their resume, its for the experience, not the topic.
    • cwncool, on 05/03/2008, -1/+2no
    • Hangly, on 05/03/2008, -1/+4Oh? And I suppose you have the linguistics background to decide what is and isn't worth studying?

      English is going through more changes right now than it has since the great vowel shift over 400 years ago. People are communicating in ways that have never used before in all of human history, and its forcing the language to evolve in very strange and interesting ways.
      Laugh all you want about the stupid ways you think people talk and communicate, but texting, "ebonics" (AAVE), wiggers, valley-girl speak, and the California and Chicago vowel shifts are going to have a dramatic effect on the kind of English your grandchildren and great grandchildren will be speaking seventy to a hundred years from now.

      I think that's really damn important, personally, and absolutely worthy of study.
      • jmoo1, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2For such a cunning linguist, you seem to have completely missed the point of my post - kudos to you.
  • rufusdog, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1At least it is more organic and real than Esperanto! Although, I would pay money to see William Shatner's phone records...
  • Picaroon, on 05/03/2008, -2/+7I don't know anyone who texts like this. Our phones make it easier to let them help us spell out the real words.
    • Zaleucus, on 05/03/2008, -0/+8Exactly. Even the people I know with a regular keypad and no T9 recognition have no trouble spelling out full words and using correct grammar.
  • YodaJones, on 05/03/2008, -1/+4Researchers = People with too much time on their hands. Let me guess...government funding? And this will help us how?
  • x0rcist, on 05/03/2008, -3/+6Wow this is retarded. It's called using less letters to be able to type quicker.
    • xNarrowSoulx, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1More quickly* - Being a Grammar Nazi seemed to fit the subject.
  • groone, on 05/03/2008, -5/+5stfu noob!
  • rolf, on 05/03/2008, -2/+4"Formal English" is just a loose standard so that everyone can come to a common understanding on how to communicate and focus on more important things -- that way people from America/Canada/UK/Australia/etc. generally understand each other. It's not some magically proper language.

    Any language with a lot of dialects (German, Japanese) had one specific dialect arbitrarily chosen (usually the ones that the powers that be spoke, in German - Hoch Deutsch of the Hamburg area, in Japanese it was a dialect in a section of Edo/Tokyo) as the most "proper" form. Which is a good thing. If you're from America, you probably never heard a deep dialect, even the deep South doesn't cut it, there are some dialects in languages I'm fluent in which I can't understand at all when spoken (the writing form is easy to read) :(

    Texting still isn't it's own language and I don't think it will evolve that way since it's mostly just acronyms or shortening of words -- but since the natives of a language it's based on can't read it without some instruction -- I can see how it is thought like that. Distinct languages evolve from dialects (German --> Dutch).

    The people who text will always be using their native language in the real world, I don't think texting has the isolation necessary to develop as a full blown language. It'd be like developing Klingon language or something -- it becomes useless as a tool to communicate with and just a toy for random amusement.
    • Hangly, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2Finally someone who knows what he's talking about.
  • Zaleucus, on 05/03/2008, -1/+7Does this mean ebonics is a language too?
    • Hangly, on 05/03/2008, -1/+2Absolutely.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vern ...
    • jaisin, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2It is a dialect. You should take a linguistics class.
      • Hangly, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1Actually I believe it's a creole.
        I dugg you up though for being the only person in this thread who knows it isn't "lazy stupid English."
        • lacronicus, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1Just because it's a dialect doesn't mean it's not "lazy stupid English." Let's not forget, now, we're posting in a thread about researchers who want to give text-speak the same classification, so unless you're going to try and convince me that text-speak is "hard-working intelligent English," you don't really have anything to stand on there.
      • Zaleucus, on 06/16/2008, -0/+1Actually I thought it was obvious that ebonics is not a language, just as obvious as texting.

        I do know that the Oakland (california) school district once voted that it was a language. They clearly have some educated language teachers.
    • isaactwito, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1It's called Jive, hello.
  • NikoKun, on 05/03/2008, -0/+7Frankly.. I've never thought of texting as anything close to "standard"... Everyone uses different abbreviations and structures... So how can we classify it as a standardized language.
  • mastication, on 05/03/2008, -1/+10I heard this is only a language if you are fifteen or younger.
    Otherwise it's called "being ***** retarded".
    • drafhk, on 05/03/2008, -0/+3If you're 15 or younger, it's still called "being ***** retarded," except in that case it's expected.
  • cadmiumpaint, on 05/03/2008, -1/+2if ever there was a communication medium custom designed for our under educated kids from the "all children left behind" educational system its text messaging.

    texting is lazy communication. everyone has their own abbreviations. It takes longer to figure out what each person is trying to say through a half assed personal abbreviation than if they just typed it out straight.

    its takes longer to text someone a detailed question and get an answer than it does to call them. I hate it. Call me or send me an email. I don't respond to people who text me.
    • xNarrowSoulx, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1Like I said above, it's so bad that in my school if you just don't use text-speak in class, you're considered one of the smart kids.
    • Hangly, on 05/03/2008, -1/+1Are you saying that people who text each other aren't communicating effectively? I disagree.
    • sirdaz, on 05/03/2008, -1/+1Texting is a great method for communicating when the people involved cannot respond right away.
      For example If I'm in a meeting I will not respond to calls or email. Send me a text, I'll reply to it when I'm done. Now what if the recipient is now driving and cannot answer their phone? I'll now send them a text for them to read when they can.
  • themanflounders, on 05/03/2008, -1/+2Oh to be a sociology major
    • themanflounders, on 05/03/2008, -1/+2*DISCLAIMER: themanflounders loves all majors of all shapes and sizes and is in fact dating a sociology major and loves all types of linguistic and cultural study up to, including, and exceeding text message analysis. He also loves English majors, as his roommate is an English PhD student who also studies things equally, or perhaps even more critical than text messages - Middle English. themanflounders rejects and denounces any all all sociological studies negativity.
  • jokeoftheday, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1r u 4 reeeeel? haha
  • talonstriker, on 05/03/2008, -1/+4What about l33t$p34k? Does that fall under this also? If it isn't, we need to make sure it is recognized also.
    • sirdaz, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1No, leet speak is just replacing letters with symbols that look similar to the original letters. It doesn't add or change anything in the language.
  • Owwmykneecap, on 05/03/2008, -0/+3wow this takes me back to about 7 years ago.

    Is america just starting to text now or what?

    Oh and by the way the Txt language came about because back then you only had 160 characters in a message. then slightly Later you had 320.
  • enriqueztwb, on 05/03/2008, -0/+3“IM is a separate language form from formal English and has a common set of language features and standards.”

    No, no it isn't.
  • krnldmp, on 05/03/2008, -3/+1Same with Ebonics.
    • Hangly, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1What is it you think you know about Ebonics?
    • jaisin, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2It's not a separate language. It is a dialect. I don't know why that is hard to understand.
  • jaredcat, on 05/03/2008, -0/+5dugg down for being an article about a new form of English and not including any evidence or even examples in the text.
  • Yakubovich, on 05/03/2008, -1/+1So, any form of slang is a new language now?
    • Hangly, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1Colorful expressions, no. Fundamental changes to lexography and grammar, yes.
  • chraej, on 05/03/2008, -0/+0ha, these scientists have obviously never heard of Leet Speak
  • uberpsycho, on 05/03/2008, -1/+0God this generation sucks....
  • 420666, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2langwige curupshin FTL
  • jake6730, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1"Researchers" sure must have a lot of time to waste. They are really hyping the text messaging these days thinking that it is so unreal. But I've got news for you, shortening "you" to "u" and "are" to "r" shouldn't be considered a separate language...
  • JVaux, on 05/03/2008, -0/+3I originally read that as: "Researchers Studying TEXAN as a Separate Language"....

    Figured it was about time....

  • Clearmedium, on 05/03/2008, -1/+1@ all who commented about l33t speak. IM came out of a desire to shorten words for convenice purpose which is completly different than the reason that l33t speak origionated. Which for reference was to hide hacker's sites by replacing letters with numbers ect so they wouldn't appear when you searched for them with normal characters. (you all know this im sure). I think that it should be left out of this discussion for that reason.
    • lacronicus, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1l33t speak was also had ties to online PC gaming, which arose well before the need for cell phone texting.
  • Bardology, on 05/03/2008, -0/+0This is *****. Internet forums and comments are jammed full of mongs who spell every third word wrong and think grammar is a cracker. Why not reward their failure to communicate at an adult level by recognising Stupinglish as a newly evolved dialect?
    • lacronicus, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1"mongs who spell every third word wrong and think grammar is a cracker"
      Pardon me, but what is a mong, and why do they think that grammar is a cracker? Unless you were being sarcastic, which would explain why you didn't spell "recognizing" right.
  • JoshuaLowe, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1Anything to keep that grant money coming in, huh?
  • prkchpsndwiches, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1GO GOLDEN FLASHES WOOHOO... we developed the Liquid Crystal for LCD's and now we're... aww seriously... text messaging language...? *****.
  • isaactwito, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1Why do they keep trying to do research on this stuff? It probably just makes your resume look *****.
  • CalmBlueOcean, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1a language? sort of. it's a bunch of abbreviations (for English phrases), and a very limited means of communication... and it's completely mediated by limitations in current technology that are quickly vanishing.
  • jonnyvice, on 05/04/2008, -0/+0Needs more desu, Pools closed due to AIDS, LOL! Partyvan Partyvan Partyvan!
  • ChrisshEnzo, on 05/05/2008, -0/+0it is a seperate langauge.
  • stagnm18, on 05/08/2008, -0/+0That is the stupidest thing I've ever read.
  •  

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