User:Simw0018/sandbox

Internet slang (Internet short-hand, netspeak or chatspeak) refers to a variety of everyday languages used by different communities on the Internet. It is a type of slang that Internet users have popularized, and in many cases, have coined. Such terms often originate with the purpose of saving keystrokes. Many people use the same abbreviations in texting and instant messaging, and social networking websites. Acronyms, keyboard symbols and shortened words are often used as methods of abbreviation in Internet slang. New dialects of slang, such as leet or Lolspeak, develop as ingroup memes rather than time savers.

World Wide View
The Internet has helped people from all over the world to become connected to one another, enabling “global” relationships to be formed. As such, it is important for the various types of slangs used online to be recognizable for everyone. It is also important to do so because of how other languages are quickly catching up with English on the Internet, following the increase in Internet usage in countries predominantly non-English speaking.

Different cultures tend to have different motivations behind their choice of slang, on top of the difference in languages use. For example, in China, because of the tough Internet regulations imposed, users tend to use certain slangs like to talk about issues deemed as sensitive to the government. These include using symbols to separate the characters of a word into other to avoid detection and hence censorship.

For more examples of how other languages express “laughing out loud”, see also: LOL

The difference in language often results in miscommunication, as seen in an Onomatopoeic example, “555”, which sounds like “crying” in Chinese, and “laughing” in Thai. A similar example is between the English “haha” and the Spanish “jaja”, where both are onomatopoeic expressions of laughter, but the difference in language also meant a different consonant for the same sound to be produced.

In terms of culture, in Chinese, the numerically based onomatopoeia “770880”, (亲亲你抱抱你 qin qin ni bao bao ni), which means to 'kiss and hug you', is used. This is comparable to “XOXO”, which many Internet users use. In French, “pkoi” is used in the place of pourquoi, which means why. This is an example of a combination of onomatopoeia and shortening of the original word for convenience when writing online.

In conclusion, every different countries has their own language background and cultural differences and hence they tend to have their own rules for their own Internet slang. However, at present, there is still a lack of studies done by researchers on some differences between the countries.