I saw a electronic road sign with an emoticon. At first I though it was strange, but upon thinking about why it seemed even more strange. Was this the evolution of human communication? Or just some kid having fun? Once you notice what is going on with communication these days, you'd probably agree that there is an evolution, and its not just of one language.
More and more people are communicating electronically by text, tweets, blogs, social networking, email bursts and so on. And with more people communicating with others around the world, there is undoubtable a new language being used. Emoticons, symbols, acrynoms, abreviations, code words and other articles are replacing older more established languages. This electronic form of communication is a pidgin ( a simplified form of communication that develops between two people or groups of people with no common language). But there is common language, its just that this form is chosen. That means it develops into a creole (a language developing from a combination of two other languages).
With time and regular use, this will soon be its own recognizable language. There will be no announcement or decleration. But it will soon be a universal language. One that uses symbols, as with hieroglyphics or even symbols as words like Chinese. It could incorporate new words that are abreviations or acronyms of other words. The face-to-face communication can also be altered into short sounds, gestures, grunts, hand signals.
This isn't to say we have the beginnings of Newspeak (Orwell's 1984). Sure the vocabulary may get smaller, but this isn't as scary. It isn't about control. And unlike Newspeak, emotion is limited, this is about expression. At least it's roots are. How it develops, who knows?
If this sounds odd or exagerated, just think have you ever heard someone say lol instead of saying "that's funny" or actually laughing? Just look at your company emails more closely, its even being used there and on road signs and by politicians.
A language evolves from the streets to the establishment. A government doesn't announce it's language (without being oppressive) it adobts the language spoken by the people. The great thing is that is it is not rooted in any country, or race. It can develop as a true universal language. (and no, binary code is not a universal language, you matrix geeks). (also it is not constructed like Esata or forced, or commercial like Net Lingua) There are signs the this is happening today around the world with this new form, founded in the electronic world of communication.
Good luck.
(yeah, I know the title is lame)
