Is chatspeak the death of English as we know it?

If chatspeak may potentially change English as it currently is, I say: bring it on!

English is problematic in many, many ways. One way in particular, that really unnerves me, is the fact that we write English the way it was pronounced 600 years ago! That's why the spelling of words like night and knife and knitting don't make much sense to English speakers today. These words reflect the Old English pronounciations when night was actually pronounced as ny-g-ht and knife as k-nife. Take a Linguistics class and learn about the evolution of language and you'll see why chatspeak isn't anything to fear.

The beautiful thing about language is that it is constantly changing and morphing. Popular slang becomes accepted into the language, and words we don't use anymore get dropped. People combine words to create new words. People switch the sounds in words to create as well. For example, when the first settlers arrived in America, the correct way to pronounce the word "ask" was "aks." Over time, the sounds in the word were mixed around in a linguistic process known as metathesis. Today, the common misconception is that people who pronounce "ask" as "aks" are ignorant or uneducated, when, in fact, it is simply a preservation of the original pronounciation.

English, for most of its history, has been a bloody and brutal language (quite literally), and it is constantly changing. Especially now, when we live in such a digital world, our vocabulary and language is changing drastically. We haven't realized it yet, but I think in about a decade or so from now, we'll look back at this time period and realize that a whole new era of English has started. Maybe it'll be called the "Post-Modern English Era."

Chatspeak is nothing to fear because I don't believe it is deteriorating the English language. I think it has the potential to add some vibrancy and excitement to our language. At the same time, the con side of the article argues that chatspeak is not harmful because students know the difference between using standard/proper English vs. chatting lingo. If teachers continue to teach students about grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, students will have no problem turning off their chatspeak in the classroom. But I think sometimes inviting chatspeak into the classroom can be a way to get students engaged. For example, when looking for resources for a Romeo & Juliet unit, I stumbled across a really hilarious and brilliant rendition of the tragedy in text message/chatting format. I think I'd have fun bringing this version in the classroom and comparing it to the archaic language of Shakespeare.

Check it out here.

Chatspeak is not completely a bad thing. As long as students recognize that there is a specific time and place for it (and usually, this means outside the classroom), there is nothing wrong with allowing students to continue writing, typing, texting, and communicating in their digital native lingo.