The Language of Texting

Its been more than a decade since cellphone text messaging or texting were popularize in many asian countries like Philippines, Japan, China. And I mean popular, you see little kids facing each other communicating via cellphone texting, instead of talking to each other. Young students walking in the streets, texting instead of watching the road to make sure that you are not stepping on anyones shoe. It is so popular that you see signs in the road that says, no texting while crossing. Churches, banks and other offices forming new rules about no texting while in the premises.

Its recently been popularize here in the US. Only this past few years that text messaging is frequently advertised and popularized in the US, like the use of text messaging to vote for contestant in American Idol, and other contest shows in TV.

But for those who are new to texting, it will be a mind buggling experience for anyone who just receive his/her first or second text message. It is because the text messaging community is utilizing a different language, or also known as the TXT language.

The txt language is not really a whole new language but writing a word in different way to make it shorter but implies the same thing/meaning. It is almost like an abbrevation but in some cases, it is not. Below are some examples of txt words commonly use by text messaging community.

Most text words are spelled according to how it sounds like:

C U ---------> See You (what it actually means!)
K -----------> Okey
L8R --------> Later
nyt ---------> night
D-----------> The
luv----------> Love
How R U ---> How are you

Others txt words are written in initials or similar meanings like:

TC ---------> Take Care
am ---------> morning
pm ---------> afternoon, evening
Message----> Msg

It is not hard to learn the text messaging language, it is mostly the same words language (mostly English), just written in a different way to make it shorter for the purpose of being able to express what you really wanna say and have it fit in a cellphone message capacity, usually counted numbers of character per message, like 200 characters maximum per message. If you can fit what you need to say in one text messaging then, you pay one message. In the texting world, you pay per message you sent and here in the US, also per message you receive. So the more words you can fit per message, you save money.

Written by JAZEVOX. All Rights Reserved.