Nerdic: The Language that Isn't

by jordan | April 18, 2008 at 02:51 pm | 134 views | add comment

Massive Technology Show (That's What It Was Called)

While interesting, the article below misconstrues the concept of a language. Indeed, tech-based jargon continues to grow more prevalent as more and more people grown more comfortable with gadgetry, but two things must be pointed out:

1. Good. People should be comfortable with their surroundings. It's normal and healthy to adapt to your social surroundings.

2. Jargon is not a language. The new words coined along with tech growth do not form a dialect of their own, but are simply used within the existing linguistic frameworks of their users.Tech is meant for mass consumption, so it should come as no surprise to find words like HDMI in the common parlance: you gotta know what kind of cable to ask for in the shop. It may seem like a "whole new way of communicating", but it's really just our own languages adapting as we, as a series of cultures, grow.

From dongles to mashups to RickRolling, 'geek speak' has become the fastest growing language in Europe as new words are invented to describe technological advances.

Experts claim about 100 new words are added to the language of technology, dubbed 'Nerdic', every year - three times the number of new words making it into the Oxford English Dictionary.

This year the number of new Nerdic words will rise to 200, according to research carried out by e-tailer pixmania.com to mark the 15th anniversary of the internet.