Is Texting Becoming Its Own Language?

In the last few years cell phones have become more and more common making communication over any distance possible. Instead of making phone calls to people who live right down the road from us we are now texting people from all over the world. These texts however are becoming more and more abstract branching off further and further from the languages they started off as. The question isn’t so much about “if” but when texting will becoming its own language.

In 2012 a study published in New Media & Society showed a correlation between the number of texts a 10-14 year old sent and their ability to identify and use proper grammar. The study showed that the more texts they sent the worse they performed when it came to grammar. It has gotten to the point that it is almost like we have learned two languages and we have to properly identify when to use them because one language we use when texting and the other we use in school.

It is said that this text-speak is ruining communication between children and their parents but this isn’t the first time we have used abbreviations and slang to get our point across. Long before the cell phone was even invented the telegram was being used to send messages. Modern text speak comes from the same place but for different reasons. Back when telegrams were still the most common form of long distance communication people were charged up to a cent per word so a message with only ten words cost $0.10 which translates roughly into $2.00 now a days. So they learned how to shorten their messages creating something that looked a lot like our modern day text messages.

Recent studies from Coventry University and the University of Hawaii have shown children can still distinguish between formal and informal speech. They also show how frequent use of text-speak doesn’t necessarily correlate with poor essay writing skills. So why are so many people against it? Some people see it as the death of the written language but, the written language is a recent invention in comparison to spoken language. This might just be what comes next and who cares if there are some abbreviations and emojis if you get your point across as fast as saying it comes across then you are doing it right.