Monday, May 03, 2010

Technology drives new creole

A creole is a pidgin language adopted by natives of a region in place or addition to their native language and incorporating many words and phrases.  If it gets used enough, it becomes a lingua franca:  Hindi/Urdu, Bahasa and Swahili are successful lingua francas (as is English, which I'm sure began life as a creole of Low German, with Latin and Celtic incursions).  Apparently Facebook doesn't support Arabic script so Arabic speakers utilize the English alphabet to write Arabic.  Technically not a creole or lingua franca, more of a compu-franca.  It's kinda cool.  Some obscenities on the site (they don't like a band that doesn't like Islam).

Chekitout.

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