An Analysis of Current Linguistic Trends & Reactions Thereto

[The Man who was Thursday]

The Internet can be a peculiar medium—it has spawned its own thriving culture. New words are generated, existing words recreated. One such word is “literacy”. No longer does it simply mean the ability to read and write; it now carries with it the implication of virtual perfection. "Literacy" in this context implies a use of a valid grammar—or, rather, a scholastic, prescriptive¹ grammar. This is, of course, not without irony: those who most ardently support this strict formalism are often oblivious of all the subtleties and nuances of the grammar they proclaim to cherish and follow so dearly.

Modern grammarians are abandoning the idea of prescriptive grammar, instead favoring a descriptive² grammar; they realize that the rules of language are, at heart, a mimetic emergence of conversation. In other words, the rules do not create the language; the language creates the rules. Language is an evolutionary entity. If you look at the history of the English language, you will find its grammar has already been diminished. In Old English, there still existed a complete system of inflection³. We preserve some of that today, but only in pronouns and, to some degree, "irregular" verbs. This trend is present in all languages. Greek has lost much of its complexity, using a stress accent instead of a pitch accent, losing several inflections, κ.τ.λ.

In the distant past, few people were literate because of the complexity of language. Written language existed largely through inscriptions into stone—therefore, much thought had to be put into what was to be written; making a slight error would be an incredible waste, as the inscriber would have to begin anew. Then we acquired paper, and language eventually molded itself around this new medium. It simplified to ease the process of writing the much longer passages possible. The simplification of language has paralleled the development of writing systems.

The trend of any system is toward chaos, yet, in the case of language, the chaos is efficiency. We have found (and are always finding more and more) that we do not need all of that grammatical bloat to accomplish the purpose of language: the transmission of ideas. Netspeak is simply the natural progression thence; it is the adaptation of written language to the communication methods we have today, for optimal speed and accuracy.

Some may argue that with the increase of efficiency we lose the latent beauty of language. It is ironic, then, that among the most beautiful forms of literature is poetry—a form which tends to bend or break the rules of language. And why did these people break grammatical rules? Simple—they could not express themselves as they needed by “correct” means. This aside, the reason people tend to view English as beautiful is because they fear the changes they see occurring in the language. They abhor this change, as humans always have. They cling to their quite antiquated language, and disdain the newly developing, superior system of communication.

Netspeak is a glimpse of the future. It is both an inevitable and a positive change. It is not of any assistance to strive for grammatical perfection; this is a hindrance to linguistic development. Rather, one should cherish this new and thriving writing system, and contribute to it positively.


1. A prescriptive grammar is one in which the rules are set for a language, and the language is developed around those rules. Compare to 2.
2. A descriptive grammar is one in which the language develops independently of the rules; the rules are mere observations of the trends within the language.
3. See http://www.engl.virginia.edu/OE/courses/handouts/magic.pdf as an example.  

[Gachetemas]

Nice man! That is some opinion. You're entitled to it. Interesting that computers are causing the evolution: (mutation is more like it, considering the rate of the change) computers have been found to waste more time than they save. Moving towards more efficient communication is a natural change, though. And it seems to be this guild's purpose. Maybe. Sorta.

I think I cling to the present language because change would require more learning for me. When I'm older people will think I my language is outdated because I refuse to change. (Maybe I will. I'm not sure.) And in the future there will be more difficulty translating documents written in present English.  

[DarkElf27]

50 j00 7h!nk i 5hooD tlk lyk th1s Bcuz 1tz n00, cha07ic, n n1v3tabl3?

You're entitled to your opinion, but I think you're dead wrong.  

[Ame Yuki Kaze]

"he prbly mnz we shld typ lyk diz. hu nds ths xtra vwlz?"

That was painful.

Ezra, you're certainly welcome to your opinion and that was excellently written out. I'm afraid most of us are fond of our vowels and punctuation. I do agree that language does develop, but we tend to see "txt tlk" as a devolution rather than an evolution.

But hey, stick around and let's have some friendly debates. smile  

[The Man who was Thursday]

Yami no Hitokiri

"he prbly mnz we shld typ lyk diz. hu nds ths xtra vwlz?"

That was painful.

Ezra, you're certainly welcome to your opinion and that was excellently written out. I'm afraid most of us are fond of our vowels and punctuation. I do agree that language does develop, but we tend to see "txt tlk" as a devolution rather than an evolution.

But hey, stick around and let's have some friendly debates. smile

In some sense, vowels are useless. A lot of languages don't have explicitly defined vowels. And in English, vowels can be pronounced so many ways, it makes their presence almost unnecessary. Only in some words where the vowel changes the meaning would they be necessary, and they would be maintained in netspeak.

Also, numeric substitution is not Netspeak; that's 1337.

Also also, I'm not against learning grammar. I just feel it should be learned in general terms, which can be applied to most languages. It's nice to know what your words are doing.  

[sixfiftyeight]

( http://www.engl.virginia.edu/OE/courses/handouts/magic.pdf )

OH NOES! sweatdrop I'm taking an Old English course right now and that sheet is seriously haunting my dreams! Luckily we don't have to memorize anything, but I have to construe a huge chunk of OE text for Friday and all I can see is that page, dancing around in my head, taunting me with it's verbs and pronouns... gonk

Anyway, I really enjoyed your essay, I wrote a similar one in 2nd year Uni but my conclusion was that English was pretty much being destroyed by netspeak. The "grammatical bloat" that you are talking about is not unnecessary, in my opinion. It is what keeps the beauty of the language intact. When people are zinging off emails at lightning speed and sending text messages back and forth, they don't think for one second about how their words are coming across. It's all about the message, not the form. I'm not saying people should be writing sonnets to each other on a daily basis, but we shouldn't forget that language is not just about simple communication. To tell the story of Dante's 'Inferno' could take about 5 pages of basic explanation. But where is the beauty in it? Seeing the words "And then they went to the next level of hell, and it pretty much sucked." don't make you sit back and just contemplate how lovely that scene was portrayed, you know?

Ah, I'm getting all rambly and nonsensical. I romance the english language FAR too much, probably. heart Basically I just can't imagine anything as wonderful as Shakespeare's sonnets or Yeats' poetry being written in netspeak. I'm a sucker for traditionalism, what can I say?  

[Ame Yuki Kaze]

So am I. My fear is if we start treating "txt tlk" and leet speak as the evolution of our language, where the hell does it stop? Next thing you know, we'll be communicating in grunts and howls because it's "easier". Isn't that rather atavistic?  

[The Man who was Thursday]

First. Leet never is and never was including. Using numbers instead of letters is just absurd.

We certainly aren't headed to a more complex grammatical system. Every language exhibits trends to the opposite. In fact, some of my friends and I joke that by following this trend, the speech of cavemen must have been ridiculously complex.

Nor will we ever simplify to the point where we lose meaning.

I believe I said this in my essay, but... There is not yet any beauty in this Netspeak because it has not been around long enough for anyone to care. Do you think people were writing lengthy, eloquent poems when Modern English was new?