My mother applied for an account in Chinese facebook not long ago; she cannot stop complaining about how the "language" that my friends and I use makes her totally confused. I feel so sorry about it, bcause she tries to understand me better by doing it. However, the way that we are "speaking" on-line is so differ from the way my mother gets used to. Meanwhile, I start to realize how distinguishing they are that my peers' "language" and my parents generation's "language".
One major difference is that lots of new words are created by the young which our parents have never seen before. For example, "lei" is a word that appears everywhere on the web now which means something is really special or weird. It is quite a negative word that did not exist even five years ago, but now it is mentioned frenquently in unformal situation. What is more, there are tons of new words like "lei"on the web. Consequently, my mother gets trouble in understanding our messages on-line without knowing these new words which are used wide by teens.
On the other hand, the languages that my generation and older generation use in formal situation are much more similar to each other than the languges we use in less formal ones. Since traditional language and standard language tend to be more appropriate in formal situation, newly born words are less involved in formal ones.
It is believed that all kinds of languages are evolving all the time. We might encounter more various "languages" in our future.
One major difference is that lots of new words are created by the young which our parents have never seen before. For example, "lei" is a word that appears everywhere on the web now which means something is really special or weird. It is quite a negative word that did not exist even five years ago, but now it is mentioned frenquently in unformal situation. What is more, there are tons of new words like "lei"on the web. Consequently, my mother gets trouble in understanding our messages on-line without knowing these new words which are used wide by teens.
On the other hand, the languages that my generation and older generation use in formal situation are much more similar to each other than the languges we use in less formal ones. Since traditional language and standard language tend to be more appropriate in formal situation, newly born words are less involved in formal ones.
It is believed that all kinds of languages are evolving all the time. We might encounter more various "languages" in our future.
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