Did you know that language evolves faster online than in real life?

Imagine this One day you sit down at your computer to relax and browse your favorite social media sites you come across a word you’ve never heard before. It is used universally but you do not even know the meaning It exists universally though you do not even know its implications! Are you a victim of the following? If it has, you know yourself that language is changing way quicker on the Internet than in the actual face to face conversation.

Language once endured for dozens of positive years changing with literature, art, and culture. But today, all the words and phrases become an online platform for dissemination, as the internet is now a great marketplace for ideas. We have seen speciation in memes, trending hashtags and just about any other area we can think of which make the internet a great accelerator for language change.

But how does this happen? But there is a big question, a question about what the future will look like about how we communicate. Now it is high time to take a closer look at this topic and reveal the main reasons why language is changing more actively on the Web, its impact on people, and the essence of the role of the Internet as the driving force behind such change.

The Lightning Speed of Communication

Access, convenience, entertainment, news, friendship and what have you, beast, billions of people in different parts of the world have been established, entertained, informed and connected through the internet to share ideas, jokes and stories instantaneously. This in a way that language mobility was very slow as it prevailed through the demands of books or newspaper or through oral communication. Today, one simple tweet, video, or post can spread our message across millions of people within seconds. This speed of communication is one of the biggest factors influencing the fact that language adapts and evolves rapidly on the Internet.

Think about it: In the past, let say a new word or a new slang came up it might take years for the word of slang to popularized. Now, in one or several days, or even hours, people all over the world can take over new phrases. For instance, FOMO; which is an abbreviation for Fear of Missing out, was initially a slang that few people used while on the social networks. Later it became a commonplace in international language, including a part of informal speech and business vocabulary.

Opinion: New media language cannot settle for there is fast and continuous communication in the social networks and in the twitter. The consumer world is never static, it is always in change and is always looking for the next best thing.

Memes: The New Language Carriers

If there is one thing that is interesting to conceptualize about online culture it is the meme. Memes are pictures, videos or pieces on text that circulate on social media platforms with appropriate new sayings or words. The comedy memes have turn out to be one of the principal reinforcers of language change on social media. Playing on the words, a straightforward, even, ordinary image may be captioned with the start of a new word that enters our technospeak lexicon.

Let me use the example of the so-called phrase “OK Boomer”. It was a cultural phenomenon which originated in the media, where young people would use it to laugh off an elder’s opinion as being outdated. Soon it reached everyone thanks to memes, and suddenly people all across the globe were using it. OK Boomer circulated widely that even reached political campaigns, news sections and even mundane discussions.

Memes are special because while informing people some of them make them have a good laugh about what is happening in today’s world through use of culture and language. They make it easy for new language to spread fast since they make it interesting, real life and easily understandable. Moreover, memes are clearly presented in visuals so people embrace new words and phrases more closely.

Hashtags: A Global Language Shortcut

Another primary driver of extensive change in language on the Internet is the use of hashtags. Hashtags are the mechanism used on social media platforms to categorize discussions by subject. By prefixing a given word or acronym by a “#”, users are able to associate their messages to other messages happening all over the globe.

However, hashtags are not just a tool for categorization, but it is also a means for producing new language pragmatics. For instance, the Hashtag #YOLO (You Only Live Once) became the new trend when defining a reckless life stance. The concept is one that was not in existence before the dawn of social media, and the hashtag revolutionized the use of the word into ubiquity.

Likewise, #TBT refers to throwback Thursday and was fashionable for people to share old picture or memory every Thursdays. These hashtags enable people to generate new language and bring it to the consciousness of others more rapidly, compressing them into one term or phrase that may then become a worldwide phenomenon. By doing so, hashtags become the aid for language that can mature at the speed that could hardly be imagined just a few decades ago.

Internet Slang: Shortcuts to a New Vocabulary

Well, let me tell you this, if you have ever engaged in any form of conversation by writing it either on social media, by email or in a private message, you have used internet slang. Instant messaging shortcuts such as ‘LOL” which stands for ‘Laugh Out Loud’, ‘BRB’ which is ‘Be Right Back’, or ‘OMG’, which is ‘Oh My God’, are common to many of us. Some of these abbreviations and slang terms Perfected over the internet as the means to write faster and save some time.

However this is not the main point that I found most interesting, namely the temporal dynamics of internet slang. There are terms that appear only on the Internet and are instantly recognizable only within several years, becoming habitual language. Let me use the term “selfie” as an example. This began as just a casual way of calling the act of making a selfie with your mobile. Today it has become so embedded in popular culture that it was officially included in the Oxford English Dictionary!

As is demonstrated by the use of Internet slang, the informal language has now interlope into the formal language or rather has become part of the language. Two is that in the digital age of communication, there is no time to use a lot of words in a single sentence. This is why short hand, abbreviations, acronyms and slang terms are particularly common on the web, because that is how people can communicate effectively, without having to spend a lot of time on it.

Emojis: The Universal Language of the Internet

You text as much as you talk today and there is no denying the fact that emojis today form a complete language of their own. Emojis are small pictures or signs used to depict thinking, feelings or belonging to a particular type. They can be a smiley face 🙄 or love ❤️ or thumbs-up👍, that show that sometimes people do not need to speak.

What good is in emojis is that they are applicable universally regardless of the language spoken by the different users. It does not matter whether you are using English, Spanish or any other language in the world you are in a position to comprehend what is the meaning of a crying face or a smiling face emoji. Therefore, emojis have risen over the challenge of culture, to a level that persons from different cultures and background can compose.

Emojis too cannot be left out when describing the part that contributions to defining online language since they bring out emotions as well as context for the conversation. For instance, typing ‘Good job!’ at the end of a writing and putting the winking face emoji can drastically change the entire message to sarcasm. Autonomous emotions incarnate new modes of interaction that help language progress, which makes emojis essential to the modern usage of the language.

Influencers: The Language Trendsetters

The language today is like the trends and fashions of today’s online society and Follows are influencers because they have lots of followers on social networks. When an influencer makes use of a given word or a phrase, everyone will be chewing on it to say it to their followers to adopt it. It is this way that trends in language, that can become incredibly widespread almost instantly.

For example, it is still acceptable to talk about friendship when the pop singer Taylor Swift started saying that she has ‘squad goals’ about her friends. The phrase quickly spread and became the subject of popularity, people at social networks, young people, audiences of different celebrities in their interviews.

They can take certain language trends and present them to an enormous amount of people due to this method becoming popular and known by many. This is why language changes much faster on the Internet than it does in actual life – this is because influencers only need one post to reach millions of people.

Online Communities: The Birthplace of New Words

Various online forums tend to develop their specific forms of communication languages. For instance, there is a tendency among the gamers to use specific short terms which within the game community can hardly be translated and understood by the outsiders. Speaking of definitions, such terms as “AFK” (Away From Keyboard) or such terms such as “noob” or a new player, are also examples of how communities of internet slang.

These communities are similar with different small ecosystems, in which new words and expressions come into existence and interactively circulate among the participants. After some time, some of these words become popular in other areas apart from the specific community, but others are only used by this particular group.

Web based communities can be considered as growing organisms that over time give birth to new linguistic expressions connected to shared passion, interest, pastime, etc. This helps to the fast growth of language in social media, because every group of people come up with new language and popularize it because of the internet.

The Future of Language: What Comes Next?

As we go on, and with advancement in affairs of the internet, so will Article the modes of Article communication. This means that new forums, applications and technologies are being created all the time and each is capable of altering the language used on the net.

For instance, the implementation of the skills such as Siri, Alexa and Google assistants has already begun to redefine the human’s interaction with technology. These assistants use natural language processing, that is; they do not ‘teach’ as we do but instead they ‘learn’ in terms of the language skills used by the users. In future, if the specified technologies become more sophisticated, they may bring in new words or phase into our vocabulary.

Likewise, the advancement in Virtual Reality (VR) & Augment Reality (AR) may alters the realm of communication in cyberspace. Just think of the ability to “communicate” with hand signs, or symbols, in a digital life. The mentioned idea could or could not prove as constructing entirely dissimilar scenarios for development of language in the future.

The Impact on Education and Learning

Education, on the other hand, has to cope with this rapid, i.e. fast-moving new language development online. It has its pros and cons. New language trends and a wealth of information are at the students’ disposal today. They can touch learning new vocabulary words, cross over the cultures, and be trendy in language use.

However, the informal style of online language sometimes clashes with formal writing into the realm of casual communication. So a teacher may face a situation when a student actually puts slang words and abbreviations that are commonly used on the internet, or sometimes even emojis instead of proper texts in their essays and assignments. This, in its turn, can become a formidable barrier to proper grammar and writing that the teacher tries to obliterate.

Still, the internet serves as a useful language teaching tool. If only there are language exchange apps, paid and free online courses, and social media are there, then besides, it is easier for many people to discover other tongues and make friendships with native speakers in every corner of the globe. The exchange of language across the world is thus about demolishing barriers and favouring making people more connected in a multilingual society.

The Evolution of Language Online

It can be impossible to do away with the observation that language online is advancing more quickly than language outside. The Internet is a medium of communication with whizzing speed, a haven for memes, hashtags, influencers, and online communities, and it has rewritten the rules of communications in the digital era.

That thought is proven to be true with the constant fluctuation of online trends, and one thing is inevitable: language will always grow, morph, transform and surprise us. Be it the latest meme, a viral hashtag, or just new internet slang, the language of tomorrow is a product of the online interactions happening today.

Therefore, when you discover a new word on the internet in the future, you should take a moment and ponder over the pace of and creativity in language changes. Maybe you are unknowingly observing the birth of the next big trend in communication!