How the internet is changing language.

A short extract from a 2012 article on the BBC website explaining how the internet shapes how people speak to one another.

Online, English has become a common language for users from around the world. In the process, the language itself is changing fast.

Some linguists predict that within 10 years English will dominate the internet - but in forms very different to what we accept and recognize as English today. That's because people who speak English as a second language already outnumber native speakers. And increasingly to use it to communicate with other non-native speakers, particularly on the internet where less attention is paid to grammar and spelling and users don't have to worry about their accent.

Users of Facebook, the internet giant with more than 2.85 billion monthly active users, already socialize in a number of different "Englishes" including Indian English, or Hinglish, Spanglish (Spanish English) and Konglish (Korean English). While these variations have long existed within individual cultures, they're now expanding and coming online. "On the internet, all that matters is that people can communicate - nobody has a right to tell them what the language should be," says Naomi Baron, professor of linguistics at American University in Washington DC.

The internet has connected people from different continents like never before.

Some words are adaptations of traditional English. In Singlish, or Singaporean English, "blur" means "confused" or "slow": "She came into the conversation late and was blur as a result." Others combine English words to make something new. In Konglish, "skinship" means intimate physical contract: handholding, touching caressing. Technology companies are tapping into the new English variations with products aimed at enabling users to add words that are not already in the English dictionary. And most large companies have English websites, while smaller businesses are learning that they need a common language - English - to reach global customers.

"While most people don't speak English as their first language, there is a special commercial and social role for English driven by modern forms of entertainment," says Robert Munro, a computational linguist. "Text messaging is the most linguistically diverse form of written communication that has ever existed," says Munro. "It's also become the first form of written communication of many of the world's languages," he says. "The prevalence of English movies in regions where there is not much technology other than cell phones and DVDs makes English an aspirational language. People think it's the language of the digital age."

- Adapted from a BBC article on the Internet and the Language.