Page 1: R U TXT CRZY? The Witty World of Multilingual Texting Copyright © Acclaro 2012

R U TXT CRZY? The Witty Worldof Multilingual Texting

This article was originally published in the Acclaro newsletter.

How does a lover of French cinema invite a friend to the movies using just 11

characters? The savvy texter would type: “6né 2m1? A tt!”, which represents: “Ciné

demain? À toute à l’heure!” (“Movie tomorrow? See you soon!”).

Around the world, users of text messaging (a.k.a. SMS or Short Message Service)

have developed a wonderfully witty linguistic subculture that is arguably changing the

way we use written language.

In any language, getting your point across in a restricted number of characters, as

required by text messages, requires wit and creativity. Roman language texters

commonly take advantage of the language-specific pronunciations of individual letters

and numbers, morphing them into words or approximations of words, such as “c u

2nite” (“see you tonight”) and “l8r” (“later”).

In Spanish, similar combinations are “salu2” for “saludos” (both “hello” and

“goodbye”), “mx” for “mucho” (“much”), “100pre” for “siempre” (“always”) or “a2” for

“adios” (“good-bye”).

Italian friends looking for each other in a crowded plaza might type “dv6” for “dove

sei?” (“Where are you?”). Or, star-crossed lovers on opposite ends of Verona would

write “mmt+” for “mi manchi tantissimo” (“I miss you so much!”).

Text abbreviations are a boon to German speakers, who would otherwise have to type

some of the longest words in language. A few of the simpler examples include:

“8ung!” for “Achtung!” (“Careful!”), “AWS” for “Auf Wiedersehen” (“good-bye”), “BS”

for “Bis Später” (“see you later”) or the very cool “BBB” for “Bis bald, baby” (“See you

soon baby”).

In French, too, common expressions are abbreviated, such as “MDR” for “mort de rire”

(a translation of “LOL”, which stands for Laugh Out Loud) or “PDP” for “pas de

problème” (“no worries”). Using letters and numbers together, a Francophone with a

Page 2: R U TXT CRZY? The Witty World of Multilingual Texting Copyright © Acclaro 2012

fantastic suggestion might punch out “g1nd2kdo” for the lengthy “J’ai une idée de

cadeau!” (“I’ve got the best idea!”).

Outside the world of Roman alphabets, numbers and symbols, rather than letters, can

step in to replace characters for simpler expressions. In Chinese, for example,

characters take up more bytes per character, which leaves numbers as the more

economical choice. So, Chinese texters use the number 8, pronounced “ba” to cleverly

say good-bye: They double it by typing “88”, which stands for “ba ba”, which sounds

like “bye-bye”.

In a world where less is usually more, take advantage of the witty world of texting to

save your self some time and effort — wherever you are. “tt 88 a2 BBB mmt+” LOL!!

About Acclaro: Acclaro is an international translation and localization company that

helps the world’s leading brands succeed across cultures. We translate websites,

marketing campaigns, documents and software to give clients an authentic voice in

key language markets.

North America: 1-866-468-5106 Worldwide: +1-914-468-0222

www.acclaro.com sales@acclaro.com