The Bride of the First House ([info]bride) wrote in [info]linguaphiles,
@ 2005-01-28 09:24:00
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Netspeak Expressions in Different Languages
Netspeak expressions aren't exclusive to English (siddown and have a cup of not-surprise =). Here are some Mandarin ones that I've seen in use or have read about. I don't know a lot of Cantonese ones but I'm sure they work much the same way in concept.

Many of them are just acronyms of the PinYin romanization:

  • 'GG' = 哥哥 (gē gē) = "elder brother"
  • 'DD' = 弟弟 (dì dì) = "little brother"
  • 'MM' = 妹妹 (mèi mèi) = "little sister"
  • 'PLMM' = 漂亮妹妹 (piāo liàng mèi mèi) = "pretty girl"
  • 'PLP' = 捧卵葩 (pěng luǎn pā; properly pronounced in Taiwanese/MinNan as "poh lahm pah") = "kiss ass" (literally: "to hold/carry testicles", this one is supposed to be really rude and vulgar, but it's been in Asian political news so much that it's become more funny than rude)
  • 'PMP' = 拍馬屁 (pāi mǎ pì) = "kiss ass"/"brown nose"
  • 'TMD' = 他媽的 (tā mā de) = "fuck", the time-honoured general expletive

Many are numbers that are homophones or near homophones of the characters:

  • '7456' = 七四五六 (qī sì wǔ liù) = 氣死我了 (qì sǐ wǒ le) = "that pisses me off"
  • '246' = 二四六 (èr sì liù) = 餓死了 (è sǐ le) = "I'm starving [to death]"
  • '995' = 九九五 (jiǔ jiǔ wǔ) = 救救我 (jiù jiù wǒ) = "help me"
  • '886' = 八八六 (bā bā liù) = bye-bye 囉 (bye-bye lo) = "bye-bye"
  • '38' = 三八 (sān bā) = "bitchy"

Then there are some that are just straight English, like '200' ("zoo"), 'gf' ("girl friend"), etc.

What are some netspeak expressions in other languages? =)


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[info]liesbyomission
2005-01-28 05:39 pm UTC (link)
In Spanish, "k" is frequently used instead of "que," at least from what I've seen in Spanish chat rooms.

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[info]fahrenheit
2005-01-28 06:43 pm UTC (link)
I've seen "c" used as si.

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[info]marnanel
2005-01-28 05:39 pm UTC (link)
This came up a while back here (discovered while I was searching for the answer I find I already gave back there): Welsh SMS abbreviations.

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[info]darth_phoenix
2005-01-28 06:15 pm UTC (link)
On the French ones, I didn't see "ac" for avec, and I don't recall "ke" or "ki" for que or qui.

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[info]varpho
2005-01-28 06:40 pm UTC (link)
maybe OT, anyway, do you know the cheese with laughing cow? "la vache qui rit". in Polish it is called "kiri".

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[info]ankewehner
2005-01-28 08:19 pm UTC (link)
I think in German, too. At least I remember TV ads for a cheese named Kiri, it might be the same.

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[info]cutemew
2005-01-29 03:13 am UTC (link)
ohman, that's hilarious. kiri. I think I'll call it that now.. I <3 laughing cow cheese XD

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[info]varpho
2005-01-28 06:06 pm UTC (link)
in Polish "q" is used instead of "ku",
some use English "sh" to write "sz" or "ż" consonants,
"4" is used for "a", "5" for "s", "3" for "e", "1" for "0" for "o" and so on...
"z/w" is Polish equivalent for "brb" [be right back, zaraz wracam],
"cześć" [hello] is shortened to "cze", or even "cz",

here are some Polish translations of English acronymes, but they are not so popular like the original ones:
AFAIR - ZTCP - z tego co pamiętam,
AFAIK - ZTCW - z tego co wiem,
IMHO - MSZ - moim skromnym zdaniem [in Polish the same stands for Ministry of Foreign Affaires :>]
...

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[info]your_tallest
2005-01-28 06:14 pm UTC (link)
I had to see 886 being used like a million times before I actually understood and just didnt say bye back.

Great Post!

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[info]marieange
2005-01-28 06:37 pm UTC (link)
I've heard a little bit of French netspeak on Soulseek. Things like "slt" or "bjr" in place of salut and bonjour; "pkoi" and "koi" or "ki" in place of pourquoi, quoi, and qui; and I saw things like "ta" instead of tu as. For the most part, the vous form wasn't used, and neither were a lot of accents.

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[info]kidnappedturtle
2005-01-28 07:38 pm UTC (link)
Also "lu" for salut, "c" for c'est, and (a lot more rarely) "3" for toi.

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[info]tornecho
2005-01-28 09:14 pm UTC (link)
A lot of quebecers spell the way they speak so there'd be a lot of joual spellings. I'm quebecois and I tend to use pkoi, koi and ki a lot so yeah... I even know a lot of Franco-Ontariens who write in joual...

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[info]marieange
2005-01-29 07:22 am UTC (link)
Makes so much more sense to me that way, actually... now I wish I'd have learned Québecois! I must've seemed so snobby to them, spelling out everything like that... haha.

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Long Overdue Response but....
[info]tornecho
2005-02-01 06:30 pm UTC (link)
Nah, in general it's not so much of a big deal, they probably think you're from France or that you're one of those people that refuse to participate in any internet slang whatsoever. It's all fine. Although I'll have to succomb to a little pride and say that yes, it's a good idea to learn Quebecois. I find it really pretty and much more colourful in terms of expressions. Plus, if you can get ur tongue around Quebecois, I'd bet you can get through most other romance languages. :S

By the way another thing to add about the lacking usage of "vous" and accents. In quebec, vous is rarely used and is usually replaced with... well... "tu" for singular and sometimes for plural. Accents also aren't used cuz people can usually get by simply through context.

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[info]remi_jakovlevic
2005-01-28 06:52 pm UTC (link)
As for Russian, have a look at this page:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/le_canard/666.html?thread=403098#t403098
^^

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[info]surrealkitten
2005-01-28 06:57 pm UTC (link)
this is my favorite post in a long time.

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[info]gogalucky
2005-01-28 07:19 pm UTC (link)
woah those number ones are neato!! it's crazy interestin! thank you! :D

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[info]dellaran
2005-01-28 07:39 pm UTC (link)
Japanese has a lot of number-based netspeak, because the language has two different sets of names for the numbers 0-9, one Chinese and one native Japanese. If you add in English names, that's three sets. With all those to work with, you can find a way to "numeralize" a lot of short phrases. The example that comes to mind is "0840": "oh" (English) + "ha" (Chinese, from "hachi") + "yo" (Japanese) + "oh" (English) = "ohayou", short for "good morning".

(Standard disclaimer: not a native Japanese speaker, but after studying it for three years, I can at least count to ten!)

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[info]rosst
2005-01-28 11:49 pm UTC (link)
I'm not sure where they got it, but I've seen them use "w" instead of "lol" or whatever. "Warau" is to laugh, so maybe that's it.

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[info]homasse
2005-01-29 12:10 am UTC (link)
Yup, it's from "warau."

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[info]doinkies
2005-01-29 03:24 am UTC (link)
Yup - and they also use the kanji for laughing to mean "LOL", too: 笑 (often in parentheses).

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[info]fukurou
2005-01-30 01:31 am UTC (link)
Yeah, two of the number ones I've seen are 4640 for 'yoroshiku' (which even at my level have *still* not come up with a good way to translate) and 39 (san-kyuu) for 'thank you'.

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[info]eliah
2005-01-28 11:26 pm UTC (link)
Not netspeak, but when I was in France a couple years ago I was totally mind-boggled by the fact that mayn of the video shops (adult and otherwise) said "K7" on them. It took me about a week to figure out that it was "ka" + "sept" = "casette."

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[info]eliah
2005-01-28 11:27 pm UTC (link)
s/mayn/many

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[info]shiro_no_wired
2005-01-29 12:27 am UTC (link)
︵
笑
︶

I saw that used in Serial Experiements Lain as an emoticon...

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[info]sakura_no_kage
2005-01-29 05:45 am UTC (link)
（笑）（泣）（汗）（爆）（自爆）and w too :D

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[info]chalissa
2005-01-29 01:45 am UTC (link)
My French teacher said she's seen "Quad-9" used to mean "What's new?", because it's said "quad-neuf", which resembles "quoi de neuf" (what's new) , I believe.

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[info]n_true
2005-01-29 03:43 am UTC (link)
I've seen Thais using 55 in the same way as Chinese people use 88 for "bye-bye".

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[info]sakura_no_kage
2005-01-29 05:45 am UTC (link)
gosh 捧卵葩 is really.... (!)

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Russian
[info]ekeme_ndiba
2005-01-29 07:51 am UTC (link)
o5 (опять) — again.

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German
[info]pne
2005-01-29 08:14 pm UTC (link)
Can't think of many German expressions (some English ones are occasionally used, though, such as LOL and ROFL; these are usually pronounced as words, i.e. "loll" and "roffle").

However, there's TOFU - "Text oben, Fullquote unten", especially on Usenet, to describe people who replace above the quoted text and include the quoted message in full, rather than trimming to the bits they're referring to, then replying beneath each quoted section.

I've also seen WIMRE (Wenn ich mich richtig erinnere) for IIRC.

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(Anonymous)
2005-02-22 01:02 am UTC (link)
21

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