Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Thanks to technology, the English language is changing faster than ever, especially for the language’s youngest speakers. And according to a new survey – some of the language’s older speakers may be getting left in the dust.
Conducted for Samsung by John Sutherland, an English literature professor from University College London, the survey included responses from 2,000 British parents – many of who were largely unfamiliar with modern slang terms like “bae” or “fleek”.
“The English language is evolving at a faster rate now than at any other time in history because of social media and instant messaging,” Sutherland said, according to a BBC News report.
Among the phrases and terms survey parents didn’t understand were: “FOMO” (fear of missing out), “Thirsty” (seeking attention), “ICYMI” (in case you missed it) and “NSFW” (digital content deemed ‘not safe for work’). The survey found that 86 percent of parents thought kids who use these phrases were actually speaking a non-English language.
LOL is so 2000
The survey also found that some phrases that popped up nearly a decade ago with the rise of text messaging are now outdated. Four-in-five British parents did acknowledge that words like OMG and LOL and now considered outdated by their children.
“The limitation of characters on old handsets were a key factor in the rise of acronyms in text messaging such as TXT, GR8, and M8,” Sutherland said. “However, technological evolution has meant that these words are now effectively extinct from the text speak language and are seen as ‘antique text speak’.
Sutherland went on to say that the recent rise of emojis “points to a future where we will see pictorial messaging in the ascendant.”
Going back to the cavemen-form of communication
“The use of audio and visual messaging has become more commonplace with the soaring popularity of social media and instant messaging apps such as Instagram, Vine, and Snapchat,” he added.
If the English language does become more picture-based, it would not be anything that civilization hasn’t seen before – Sutherland pointed out.
“In fact we are moving to a more pictographic form of communication with the increasing popularity of emoticons,” he said. “This harks back to a caveman-form of communication where a single picture can convey a full range of messages and emotions.”
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