The Flying Lens

Don't follow me, I travel strange paths

Teenagers Revive Dead Languages Through Texting

A funny thing happened to several languages on their way to extinction — they were saved, pulled back from the brink by teenagers and the Internet, of all things.

Samuel Herrera, who runs the linguistics laboratory at the Institute of Anthropological Research in Mexico City, found young people in southern Chile producing hip-hop videos and posting them on YouTube using Huilliche, a language on the brink of extinction.

Herrera also discovered teens in the Phillippines and Mexico who think it’s “cool” to send text messages in regional endangered languages like Kapampangan and Huave.

Almost as soon as text messaging exploded on the world stage as a means to reach anyone, anywhere, and anytime, young people began to find a way to scale it back, make it more exclusive and develop their own code or doublespeak to use on the widely-used devices.

Shorthand and abbreviations became a popular way to keep the “inside joke” of LOL, or “laughing out loud,” and brb, or “be right back,” within the circle. In time, though, these catchphrases reached a broader audience, losing their cache and exclusivity. As soon as its use became widespread and commercial, the code was no longer “cool.”

(via poptech)

  1. bedda reblogged this from poptech
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  3. glittertrance reblogged this from poptech and added:
    I have to say….this is pretty badass. I approve.
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  7. skyghe reblogged this from randomblink and added:
    Wonderful the things kids get up to these days…
  8. lilridgey reblogged this from poptech and added:
    Yeh!!!it’s really annoying!!!
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    sometimes I love the world
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  21. hidden-albatross reblogged this from poptech and added:
    I think this is extremely need! I hope to learn different languages of my cultures as well as more so I can pass it down...
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