07/11/2024
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The Internet and the death of languages on it

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With LOLs, Kikikis, WTFs and emojis making for actual speech lately, should we be concerned that Internet and its use on mobile devices is killing off languages?

What’s more worrying is when using devices people would rather use English than native languages even if the device or site they’re on gives them the choice to change, so the growth of these isn’t as fast as the others. More of these are likely to disappear off the internet. Actually, they have disappeared. Just look at the chart above shared by Statista. There were 8000 internet languages recorded in 2012, and only 7102 in 2015. Where did all the languages go? The chart also shows some major sites that have increased the number of languages that can be used on their platforms but users are preferring to stick to English.

English itself has also faced some changes in itself. People have learned ways to express themselves without using all their words. Emojis are strong in expressing feelings/emotions. Abbreviations are highly used too, especially with sites like Twitter that give limited characters per post.

There is hope though that we won’t completely lose each other in communication as more people are beginning to catch up on acronyms and emoji usage, arguing that it is making communication better as they can say what they want to using very few emoticons or stickers.

Do you agree? What language do you use on the Internet?

Sandi

Tech Blogger & Marketer.