Sign in / up

back to article Philippines declare war on cyberlingo

The government of the Philippines has declared "all out war" on what it considers a major threat to the purity of English - the "jejemon" invasion of social networks and mobe text messaging. According to this in-depth report from Oz, the word jejemon is a fusion of 'jeje' (a variant of SMS "hehe"), and the suffix "mon", culled …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections
This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    As you please!

    Surely this ridiculous lingo takes more time to type/write?

    Reminds me of these muppets who scrawl "Daz woz ere 2K08!" on various flat surfaces! Surely it would be easier to simply write "2008"?

    Oh yes sorry I am a sad old git who will thankfully, never know the joy of "fitting-in"!!!

    0 0
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Raised a smile

    "Education secretary Mona Valisno...Texting or using wrong English and wrong spelling could be very bad. "

    nuff sed.

    1 0
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    What's the problem?

    It's only like gyaru-moji in Japan and huoxing wen in China. If it was rotting the brains of the young, surely the Chinese government would have banned it.

    (Alien because huoxing wen means "Martian language")

    0 0
    1. Elmer Phud
      Reply Icon

      what's new?

      Are groan-ups getting annoyed that young people are using their own variation of language?

      What a bummer, must be a real hassle.

      Just stay cool, Daddy-o, no need to flip your wig.

      1 0
  4. LuMan
    Grenade

    No probs here..

    Inglish wil nevah be killed off as any fule no!

    1 0
  5. peyton?

    His parents read his texts?

    Oh boy - you could really have a lot of fun that one and a few choice texts planted for them to read.

    1 0
  6. Jesse Dorland
    Linux

    Dat's vot happens when u eat snails!

    My grandma, a proud English woman used to say "that's what happens when you eat snails!" It reminds me of French government department that forces people to speak "proper French" and prevent entry of anything non-frenchy a la computer and software would be ordinatuer, logiciel. Perhaps, our French brothers are outsourcing Académie française to Southeast Asia so they can buy all those expensive sea snails thanks to oil spill in Gulf of Mexico.

    0 0
  7. Graham Marsden
    Headmaster

    "the purity of English"...?

    In the words of James D Nicholl...

    "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

    Kids have always created their own slang, some of it may get absorbed into the language, but most of it just dies off and gets replaced by the "next thing" to come along.

    Making a big deal about it just makes kids *more* likely to use it because it annoys the older generations.

    3 0
  8. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    untitled!

    "Language is merely an expression of experience. What is more important are the values behind the language."

    "74n6U463 1$ m'3r37y 4n 3xpr3$$10n 0f 3xp3r13nc3. wj4+ 1$ m'0r3 1m'p0wWwz'r+4n+ 4r3 +j3 v47U3$ b3h1nD +j3 74n6U463".

    there is a mistake in the translation, "1m'p0wWwz'r+4n+" it should have been "1m'p0r+an+"

    +j3 +r4n$74+or 1$ n0+ 733+ 3n0U6j

    0 0
    1. DJ 2
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      It's not a new thing and not restricted to da yoof.

      +j3 +r4n$74+or 1$ n0+ 733+ 3n0U6j

      Exactly, why do you need a transaltor, it's perfectly simple to read,

      Quake wars how I miss you so.

      4up !4w 01p 3u0nph 2b p3r p4r3n+s

      0 1
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      yes, the translator is trully not leet enough...

      It takes considerably more brain power to write in this leet-alike 71n60, so this is not necessarily a bad thing for the young ones...

      0 1
  9. NumptyScrub

    jejemon or l33t?

    sounds like perfectly normal l33tsp33k to me, the internets have had that for over a decade without too much pwnage of the English language in the interim. Maybe someone should tell them that plenty of technophilic old gits who remember 9600 baud can read their super secret writings ;)

    0 0
    1. Pablo
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Nah

      It's clearly not the same. That "translator" is clearly bogus. It's only a transliterator, at best. But there's more too it than just replacing letters. For instance a simplistic "l33tsp33k" translator might render "I will hack your computer and find you" as "! w!11 h4(|< y0ur (0mpu73r 4nd f!nd y0u!" whereas a more authentic translation would be something like "I w1ll h4xx0r y3r compy & f1nd j00!".

      So that's where l33t and jejemon differ. But even on the transliteration level, you should be able to pick up a few differences. In l33t speak, 7 is T and 1 is L. But in jejemon, 7 seems to stand for L.

      ...I should probably be embarrassed that I know this, huh?

      0 0
  10. s. pam Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Can we get them to declare Marketing B.S. Bingo illegal as well?

    The impact on the worlds' economy in a straight EnGrish approach could be immense to the financial bottom line of many companies as a result!

    0 0
  11. YumDogfood

    All these antics are not new; Pig Latin at schools is still going strong.

    Oddly, piping through the 'English-to-12-Year-Old-AOLer Translator' makes it more legible to me.

    http://ssshotaru.homestead.com/files/aolertranslator.html

    0 0
  12. Trokair 1
    Badgers

    Late to the party

    This is no new language but a mutation of leet speak. That makes them at least 10 years late to the party. Look at the prior languages and know it is just a fad that will die out.

    And shame on El Reg for not mentioning 1337 in the article. Then again, I can't say mad at you.... Want to go to lunch????

    Badgers, just because.

    0 0
    1. [Yamthief]
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      Late to the party...

      I agree. Leet speak has been around since the early days of counterstrike and unreal tournament (if not before?). Nothing to worry about here.

      0 0
  13. Alex 65

    Nothing to worry about really

    Having lived in the Philippines, and with friends still there, this isn't really an issue.

    Sure, some highschoolers are doing this-but most of the texting is still the standard taglish/txtspeek that it has been for years.

    0 0
  14. Neoc
    WTF?

    Who cares.

    First of all, most of us oldies" should be able to read this - welcome to l337-speak. Second, I don't see why anyone would give a damn so long as their English school-work uses "proper" grammar and spelling.

    1 0
  15. Dr Patrick J R Harkin

    Students sometimes e-mail me in txtspk...

    ...so I reply in txtspk. Do I mean txtspk? No, it's that other name, what is it, oh yes, "random collections of letters, numbers and symbols, spaced so it looks like sentences and with just enough recognisable bits thrown in so they think they're missing something important."

    2 0
This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like