Lingo Aint For the Dingo

Just dug this article up from archives. This is my article for the first Writers' Circle Publication "Pentagram" in 2005.

Now back to the point

LINGO AINT FOR THE DINGO
Decoding the Language of Youth

How many times have you gone back home and seen flustered faces as you unconsciously go on about “chaat” in speech, and “funda” in life? English and French may fight it out to unite the world under one language with most speakers, while the Chinese try not to do that by going early to sleep. The most defining factor in differentiating and integrating the youth of today is LINGO! Just as it may make you feel at home in Antarctica, it can make you feel alien in your home country. Enriched by the spices and nuances of parochial groups, Lingo has been always been the coolest thing around for ages. Every generation comes on with something that defines it. If the Hippies were in the 70’s and the GenX in the naughties, lingo has been a defining factor of a person’s lifestyle. Lingo has always been the easiest way to incorporate that. It is testimonial to where we are and with whom we are. Often the definition of coolness, has hung on the precinct of how lingo friendly one is.

Wassup may lead to heads staring up at the void space, imported “maal” doesn’t need to be bought from duty free, “chaat” is not necessarily the spicy scrumptious stuff your sweaty roadside vendor serves with flies intact, bad can mean good, “it” can be a human and so on till a point where irony doesn’t have anything ironic. For a marooned army, getting “supplies” is the next best thing to going to Heaven, while for students “supplies” are the next best thing to getting marooned. One may blame it on the intricacies of English, but it isn’t so, for all languages have had their share. Lingo is the driving force among youth for the very reason it gives them an opportunity to identify themselves among peers and stamp with authority their presence.

2days peeps hav wndrful sense of getin da msg a’x’. Wat da jerries blew k’s on, 2days peepz do it 4 free. Cryptic msgs undecipherable 2 othrs. 143 wudnt make sense 2 u, but on vday, every1 knws it. Where is eng goin 2?

Afraid, not being an exponent of this craze to banish the vowels to Netherland, nor let Shakespeare scream ‘Murder’, I haven’t done full justice to slang. Lingo has also been influenced by current affairs. A dull person can be a muggle, and taking the blue pill is cool (no, it isn’t a doctor’s prescription).

Critics cry as they write out epitaphs for vowels, grammar, apostrophes, colons and other soon becoming redundant grammar usage. But the opposite side says, it’s the way of the world, if a language cannot change with society, it will die out. Latin turns in its grave on this point. What surprises linguists is the faster rate at which this change is coming about, also affected by globalization as local words fit into the English dictionary. The war remains until sides change as a new jump in generations take place.

Though a consensus is always required, should it be that slang be left out of written word or let it be a part of history