How we language has always been a point of fascination for me, which seems fair enough, for a writer. And as you might guess, one of my pet peeves has always been this idiotic Internet lingo born out of "LMAO" and "LOL" and "ROFL", and all those other meaningless little expressions. To this day, I can't take someone seriously if they text "lol". To be fair, laughing through text is tricky business, usually relying on emojis to convey our amusement. There is the odd person who will type "haha", but you can't trust those, either. I mean, when did you actually ever say "haha"? If we look at it like that, it's likelier that you're laughing out loud, because at least, we've done that. And if you do laugh with audible "ha"s, who are you, Santa Clause?
What's recently been on my mind is not the abbreviations, however, but the increasingly phonetic spelling of our young generations. Instead of "what", you've got "wat" or "wut". Instead of "you" it's "u", instead of "you're/your", it's "ur", "cuz" instead of "because". And I don't know any more off the top of my head. I actually had to search "Internet slang".
"fuk" for "fuck", there's another one, which I plain don't like. What's wrong with the word fuck? It's ("iz") a great ("gret") word.
Trust me, I get the fun in using these. Hard as it is to believe, I use them too, in certain situations, but I'm definitely not proud of it, because to me, they all seem to be pointing towards a steep regression. Famously, William Shakespeare spelled his name in several different variants, including "Shakespear" and "Shakspere". Why? Because there wasn't an "official" version. Of course, the argument here is that not knowing the "right" version of words didn't stop Shakey Bill from penning some of the most masterful pieces of literature in the English language.
True, but also not. Because Shakespeare lived in a very different time, when language was not nearly as well established as it is now. Keep in mind that the first dictionary (Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall) was just written towards the end of Shakespeare's life (1603). Many of the people standing in the Globe were illiterate. So I'm guessing a guy with Shakespeare's education, despite his insecurities over some words, was already a pretty clever guy.
Now, that's no longer the story. Most children using this numpty language are educated, and taught proper grammar and punctuation. 'Cause that's another issue - do you know that my generation thinks people who use proper punctuation in their texts must be either angry or insane? Seriously. I remember when I was a little younger, if I ever used a period in my texts, I was mad af, as the kids would say.
Of course, we've grown up a bit, and now most of us are weaning off emojis, and learning the proper place of commas. So maybe that's what happens, eventually, you mess around for a while in writing, but then, you eventually grow up, and return to the English you were taught. Could be.
But what if it's not?
The main argument for these abbreviations and phonetically typed words is that "of course we won't forget proper language". Except you do, because that's how your brain works. If you use a wrong word for long enough, then it becomes very hard to start using the correct one. Sure, maybe they taught you in school that you need a comma after certain words, but if you don't use it like that for 5-10 years, chances are what you learned becomes meaningless.
I'm wondering if this will become a thing for our younger generations, then what will the next ones look like? How will kids communicate in 50 years time, and will it surpass this current level of childish funk? Because as much as I like to think that's the case, it's not just kids doing it. I see many 30 and 40 year olds using the same butchered language, and silly abbreviations. Obviously, they know how to talk proper, but that's not the question here. Rather that this sort of non-sense, caveman language is spreading to older generations, and I wonder how long our existing foundation can hold its own.
Maybe I'm being narrow-minded here, I don't know ("dunno"). It just seems like we're so readily abandoning all these rules we're fought so hard to create, like punctuation, and grammar. And I just can't imagine a real book being written in this Neanderthal lingo, rather than the King's English, you know?
At the same time, maybe it's a good sign, since it shows English is still a living language, that it's still changing and adapting. And that must be a good sign, right?
So what do you think, are we moving backwards? Or is it just another natural phase in this fascinating game called life?
The main indicator that a language isn't dying out is that it's able to change and adapt (as you also said). With my mother tongue, Estonian, we have the same problems – youngsters using very phonetic or just heavily abbreviated words, which annoys me as well. However, in Estonia, I feel that people are very proud of their language and whenever someone tries to "break" it, they will probably get a stern talking-to.
TL;DR: I believe it is, as you said, a natural phase in languages. This is the exact reason why we have rules – sure, sometimes you might forget about the rules, but they still exist and if you want to achieve something in life, you have to remember the rules.
Language is an invention, a tool. It will be modified as needed or desired.