...Would like to state for official record...

[heraldofchaos]

that as much as you all might not like it, I believe that in the next 20 years 31337 or as its become "NET speak" will in itself become a completely universal language onto itself in which all people will know a reasonable amount of, allowing the language barrier to be crossed between cultures

Comments

[grinningskull]

OH NOES! THEY BE TAKIN MY GRAMMARZ

[heraldofchaos]

isnt there lolcats the musical already?

if not, might be something to think about. i wonder if we could get the licence for ALW cats and just do a translation?

[misskitty_79]

"As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

1. In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
2. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
3. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling
   kan be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
   Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
4. By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".
5. During ze

[heraldofchaos]

actual, i was suppositioning(?) not "spelin liek ijits" but actual net/leet speak.

already LOL is pretty international. so is kekekeke, 31337, 1337... heck a spin off of tech language as it already exists. CPU, RAM, HD, is the same anywhere in the world.

think of it this way. you can walk into any electronics store in the world and say "Sony, 42 Inch, LCD, HD, 1080p" and be shown exactly what you asked for. its easier for someone to buy electronics in a foreign land than it is to get food, or find help.

think of it this way, i had a conversation online yesterday with someone from the Netherlands and neither of us spoke the others language, but since we were talking about something in specific which the terms are universal. we could communicate. pure netspeak.

[zinger04]

If it's all tech speak that's universal, than it won't really apply to the common person. Sure there are terms like HD and CPU that are widely known but these are still abbreviations of English words and in no way universal. Do I think it's possible in the next 20 years and tech savvy people will have developed a language with each other that would be globally understood, sure. Do I think that we'll all be speaking the same language, I highly doubt it. It will simply be a defined language or dialect understood by those who work with the technology. I highly doubt we'll all be SPEAKING LOLcats in the next 50 years if ever....but hey, there's also the possibility that time will prove me wrong and you right. I'll re-open this argument in 20 years!!!

[defamatory]

Even if you're right, you're going to be wrong, in a way...

Let's accept your supposition. After all, language changes over time, is just a representation, and the actual words are completely arbitrary. It is possible (although unlikely) that all existing languages will be completely replaced by some form of net/txt speak.

There's a big catch though: It's one thing when it's just computer nerds or texting teenagers using it, but if everyone speaks LOLcats, it's a bona fide language. It needs to be clear to allow people to communicate, and that need grows with the number of people in different parts of the world using it.

That means it's going to be defined. There will be rules for its usage: dictionaries, spell checkers, proper grammar. "spelling nazis" will still be pointing out the errors in what people write.

There will never, ever, be a free-wheeling, make-it-up-as-you-go dialect that is used by more than a very small, specialized segment of the population. It's just not good communication.