Teenspeak: unique to Americans

[KenP]

My daughter and her friends, although bright kids, speak a language that's not quite English:

"So I was like (grimace). And she was like (smirk). But David? The guy she used to go out with? He was like (scowl)."

Is this unique to Americans? Or do teenage Aussies also speak not-quite-English? Do teenage Germans speak not-quite-German? Etc., etc.

[Cessandra]

Well, I don't speak any languages other than English, but, my best friend speaks French as a second native tongue -- that is, she grew up in America speaking English to her dad and French to her mom, and spending summers in France. As a teen, she sometimes had trouble understanding French teenagers and their slang. So, no, it doesn't appear to be a totally American thing.

[TheLoadedDog]

Teenage Aussies do indeed speak not-quite-English*.

The habit of peppering conversations with the word 'like' isn't a new one. It can still be heard in Australia, but not as much as it was ten or so years ago. If I'm not mistaken, it's Californian in origin, and dates from around the mid-1980s.

The language teenagers use here has changed over the twenty years I've been paying attention to it, but the "weird teen accent" hasn't. It's a challenge to describe this accent. It's a lazy accent in some ways, but also carefully modulated in others. There are lots of very round (rOWnd) vowel sounds, and words tend not to run in to one another as they do in general Australian English. Each word tends to get clipped short. It has a slightly pretentious feel to it, and sounds as though the speakers are trying to sound educated and worldly (which is exactly what the average older teen IS trying to do).

The latest hot phrase for them here in Sydney at least, is "Are you serious?", pronounced "Are. You. Seri. Ussss?". It's incredible how often they can manage to say this within the space of a one or two minute conversation. It has become the standard response. Of course the teen classic (favoured by the girls) of "Oh. My. Goddddd" still has some currency. They're also still describing things as "fully sick", "hardcore", and "mad", all of which more or less mean "good".



*Yes, Yes. I know. The same could be said for the adults.

[antechinus]

In Australia the kiddies are understandable, nothing like Valleyish, which I think is what you are referring to.

Like, OH MY GOD!
Like - TOTALLY
Encino is like SO BITCHEN
There's like the Galleria
...
It s like so BITCHEN cuz like everybody's like
Super-super nice
It's like so BITCHEN...
- F Zappa

[Sublight]

Japanese also has its own teen language, which frequently uses abbreviated mixtures of Japanese and English.

[syncrolecyne]

In Mexico, the upper class teenagers ("fresas") have a lot of their own slang. Working class kids have a separate set of slang.

Anyway, the Mexican fresa equivalent of "like..." is "o sea...".

http://www.osea.com.mx/

[Lamia]

My Japanese friends tell me that there's a "schoolgirl dialect" that seems to be the Japanese equivelant of "Valley Girl" speech. I don't speak Japanese but I can tell that the "schoolgirl dialect" is higher-pitched and more sing-songy than standard Japanese, and my friends tell me the word selection and sentence formation also make it sound cutesy.

[Larry Mudd]

Shonen!

[Latch]

A mate of mine came back from Sydney after a 4 month stay. Now when we go out to a pub or niteclub he yells "chucks everwah" (chicks everywhere). He has a lot more slang he picked up from there, but that's the one I can remember offhand.

[Latch]

Oh, and I'm pretty sure it's not just a slag at the kiwi (New Zealand) accent.

[grimpixie]

I read an article recently about the habit in French teen-slang of reversing the order of the syllables of an ordinary word to make a slang word... this is known as verlan - itself a "verlanised" version of the word l'envers meaning "reverse".

Apparantly (according to the article) it makes speaking with French teenagers rather difficult, as these words are liberally sprinkled into the conversation...

A site on velan: http://french.about.com/library/vocab/bl-verlan.htm

[Peanuthead]

That "like" business is not confined to only teenagers. It seems as though everyone under the age of forty (and many beyond as well) are afflicted with the "like" syndrome.
Makes me want to commit murder! :mad:

[Kyomara]

Originally posted by grimpixie
I read an article recently about the habit in French teen-slang of reversing the order of the syllables of an ordinary word to make a slang word...
Apparently they had a similar fad in Japanese in the mid-nineties. My favorite manga from that period is peppered with it. It's almost pig-latiny in its effect, as it was often used to soften dirty or insulting words (at least in this manga it was). So ketsu (ass) becomes tsuke and hage (baldy) becomes geha.

But nowadays you only hear 30-something salarymen using these words, a true sign that it has fallen out of fashion.

Which makes me wonder, what are we really talking about here? If we're just talking about slang and passing linguistic fads, I would imagine that just about every language in the world has some kind of "teenspeak." But I think the OP is referring to a more tenacious weird intonation that has been used by American teens for at least the last 20 years.

Not that I have any answers for that. :D

[Skip]

You china's have naught on South Afrikan slang, ek se. Cheers okes cos I've got to chuck with my boets cos we're jolling. Lekker!

[grimpixie]

Originally posted by Skip
You china's have naught on South Afrikan slang, ek se. Cheers okes cos I've got to chuck with my boets cos we're jolling. Lekker! Don't tune me with your grief bro, I don't smaak your looks ek se!! Juslaaik, it's almost chowtime - a bietjie kos, dop and then a dos! Safe my brooo!!

:D

[raygirvan]

the like syndrome

UK is similar. Here they use "like" to mean "said". Typically heard on the bus, this kind of monologue:

And my Mum was like,"Where are you going?" And I was like, "Out with Shaun." And she was like, "Not while you're living in my house". And I was like, "That's soooo unfair." ... etc

[drachillix]

Originally posted by Peanuthead
Makes me want to commit murder! :mad:

Like, lighten up man, why you be sweatin me.

:eek:

[ducks and runs from barrage of bricks]

[drachillix]

Originally posted by raygirvan
the like syndrome
And I was like, "That's like soooo unfair." ... etc

You missed a like.

:D

[jjimm]

It's definitely creeping in over here - I find myself using "like" for "said".

I noticed from American friends of mine (in their late 20s) that "the like syndrome" seemed to creep in about '94/'95. I also noticed that it was often coupled with the word "all" - thus "and I'm all like [mimed expression], and he's all like [another mimed expression]".

[Zagadka]

And this is how language changes. In 200 years, they will look back on when the word "like" took on entire new realms of meaning.

I blame it on high school English teachers. The god-forsaken phrase "...using 'like or as'..." has come back to haunt civilization as we know it.

Mostly it is used as a disqualifier of knowing what is going on around them, which is common with teenagers in general... I use it in terms like "I'll fix it like Thursday" or "He said, like, (insert paraphrase)".

[BornDodgy]

Teenage Austrians speak not quite German.

[axi]

Judging from the horrors of English and French teenspeak, I guess that teenage Greeks speak quite good Greek. We have slang words which come in ang go out of fashion, but we don;t go as far as to alter our accent.

We tend to use the "malaka" word all the time though.

[sailor]

>> And my Mum was like,"Where are you going?" And I was like, "Out with Shaun." And she was like, "Not while you're living in my house". And I was like, "That's soooo unfair." ... etc

Well, my Mum goes "Where are you going looking like that?",.
And I go "With Shaun."
And she goes "You look awful".
And I go "Whatever!"
And she's like *totally* freaked out.

The worst part is the "uptalk": that intonation where every phrase rises in the end like it were a question. Ugh!

[jjimm]

Originally posted by sailor
Well, my Mum goes "Where are you going looking like that?",.
And I go "With Shaun."
And she goes "You look awful".
And I go "Whatever!"
And she's like *totally* freaked out.That sounds very English.The worst part is the "uptalk": that intonation where every phrase rises in the end like it were a question. Ugh! Just the other day I invented a new punctuation mark to indicate uptalk/? I presume you can guess what it is/?

[KenP]

I agree with sailor that uptalking is extremely annoying. But to me the worst part is that words just disappear, and are replaced by facial expressions, hand gestures, and sounds.

"She was like (facial expression)."

This from a kid who scored 680 on the Englsih SAT in the 8th grade.

[kimera]

Actually, there's an entire dialect in Japan called "Osakaben" or "Kansai", which is the version of Japanese spoken by natives of Osaka. I think the best description for it would be the Ebonics (sp?) of Japan, and it's usually used (outside of Osaka) by, well... teenagers.

[kimera]

er.. above was [b]High Priestess[b]'s post... I forgot to log out. ^^

[raygirvan]

sailor

Using "go" for "said" goes way back. I remember children using it when I was at school (southern England, early 1960s) and I'm sure it pre-dates that.

[wu wei]

It seems like you can trace the use of "go" for "vocalizes" back at least as far as the old children's See 'n Say toy ("The cow goes... Moo!"), and presumably farther. The "like" thing seems, like, much more recent or whatever/?

[Caesar's Ghost]

I'm 16 years old, and go to a public high school...naturally, I hear a lot of valleyspeak and slang. Each little cult (that's what the kids at my school call the various groups of jocks, goths, nerds, etc) has its own speak, although "like", "so" and various other common words are universal.

As for me, I use 'like' pretty often--it's just a habit. I don't use many of the other slang words, since some of them ("gay" to mean something bad, "retard") I hate with a passion. However, it does make conversations with peer-strangers easy. Just act really shocked at everything, use like, and talk about superficial things. There ya go.

As for the international thing, we have some exchange students over here who pick up on the slang almost scarily easily. Others never get it.

[mnemosyne]

Although I do occasionally use "like" to mean "said", my sister is far worse, and she has the added syndrome of adding "you know what I mean?" to every sentence.

She might be talking about what she learned in Biology, and she'll say something along the lines of:
"So, like, the prof was showing us this thing about the cell, you-know-what-I-mean, and Ilke, he was explaining about how ATP is, like, made, and, like, he showed us this neat diagram, you-know-what-I-mean?"

It gets really annoying, REALLY fast. My cousin does the same thing, but I see her less, so it doesn't seem as bad! Makes me glad I don't live at home anymore, though!

[Fretful Porpentine]

Originally posted by Peanuthead
That "like" business is not confined to only teenagers. It seems as though everyone under the age of forty (and many beyond as well) are afflicted with the "like" syndrome.
Makes me want to commit murder! :mad:
Judging from the horrors of English and French teenspeak...
The worst part is the "uptalk": that intonation where every phrase rises in the end like it were a question. Ugh!
I agree with sailor that uptalking is extremely annoying. But to me the worst part is that words just disappear, and are replaced by facial expressions, hand gestures, and sounds.
Which brings me to another question ... WHY does teenage slang -- which strikes me as a perfectly harmless phenomenon, for the most part -- bother people so much? What exactly is offensive about it? (I'm honestly curious, by the way -- not trying to be judgmental.)

[Kyomara]

Originally posted by jjimm
I also noticed...the word "all" - thus "and I'm all like [mimed expression], and he's all like [another mimed expression]".
To my knowledge, the use of "all" in this way is a West Coast phenomenon. You don't hear it much on the East Coast. As an aside, on the West Coast they also "smoke out" instead of "smoking up," which used to drive me crazy no end when I was into that.

As far as "he's like" and "she goes" being an English phenomenon, I know that both of these are very common in the U.S., and I seem to recall hearing Aussie and Kiwi frineds using it again. I have no idea where it started. Could it have cropped up simultaneously all over the English speaking world? Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe speaking like this is.......our destiny.

[antechinus]

Originally posted by grimpixie
I read an article recently about the habit in French teen-slang of reversing the order of the syllables of an ordinary word to make a slang word... this is known as verlan - itself a "verlanised" version of the word l'envers meaning "reverse".


This reminds me of rechtub kelat, spoken by butchers over here. OK not quite kiddies, I know.

rechtub kelat
noun a secret language used by butchers in which normal words are pronounced as they would be if spelled backwards. [rechtub kelat is `butcher talk' in rechtub kelat]
ref: http://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/p/dictionary/slang-r.html

eg ecine stit :D

[raygirvan]

Kyomara
... the use of "all" in this way ...

Then again, that's another one that goes way back. It's quite common in UK slang to use "all" as an interjection, either to mean "some" or just for emphasis: e.g. "I went into their house and there were all cats in the kitchen and all dirt running down the fridge door".

I'm sorry to say I use it myself, and my wife ridicules it. "Ray, are you saying that all cats - every cat that exists in the world - were in the kitchen? It must have been crowded."

[pulykamell]

I've always interpreted "like" to have a slightly different meaning than "said." "Like" stresses the fact that what I am about to say is not verbatim what was actually said, but conveys the general information. Then again, I may be over-intellectualizing it and justifying it since I do use it myself quite alot, along with "go" and I'm not from anywhere near California nor am I a teenager anymore.

[mightyaphrodite]

Originally posted by Lamia
My Japanese friends tell me that there's a "schoolgirl dialect" that seems to be the Japanese equivelant of "Valley Girl" speech. I don't speak Japanese but I can tell that the "schoolgirl dialect" is higher-pitched and more sing-songy than standard Japanese, and my friends tell me the word selection and sentence formation also make it sound cutesy.

I wonder if that's the same sort of variation that you hear used by high school girls in anime. Most likely, I would assume. But it certainly matches the description you gave. :)

[Kyomara]

Originally posted by mightyaphrodite
I wonder if that's the same sort of variation that you hear used by high school girls in anime. Most likely, I would assume. But it certainly matches the description you gave. :)

I can safely and quite happily assure you that no one in Japan, cute young female or otherwise, talks like the girls in anime. And I thank God every day on my knees for that.

I often think that the same 5 people do all the voices for anime and dubbed movies in this country. Even the dubbed voices in Western movies don't talk like real people. I don't see the appeal.

[hammerbach]

Originally posted by Fretful Porpentine
Which brings me to another question ... WHY does teenage slang -- which strikes me as a perfectly harmless phenomenon, for the most part -- bother people so much? What exactly is offensive about it? (I'm honestly curious, by the way -- not trying to be judgmental.)

I can't speak for anyone else in this, but in my case, it's simply disgust at seeing something done in such a half-assed way. Most kids can do far better, but a fair number of them will never learn to speak properly. Given that our societies have certain expectations, this puts rather sever limitations upon those youngsters and thier futures.

Having said all this, I have to admit to my own linguistic peculiarities and learn to be a tolerant and benign geriatric flatulent.

[CookingWithGas]

Originally posted by hammerbach
. . . it's simply disgust at seeing something done in such a half-assed way

I have a different theory. Kids talk like that to create a sense of social belonging. It goes with the clothes, music, and hairstyles--which we also hate. It's a way of asserting their independence from adult society, and creating their own cohesion. And the whole thing is repugnant to adults because the adults feel alienated and the kids seem arrogant because they don't appreciate how dependent they still are.

It's the same thing that makes us resent the slang or jargon of any group that makes us feel like an outsider. When you were a 'Net newbie, didn't it piss you off that everyone was IMHO this and IIRC that and ROTFLMAO the other?

[easy e]

Originally posted by pulykamell
I've always interpreted "like" to have a slightly different meaning than "said." "Like" stresses the fact that what I am about to say is not verbatim what was actually said, but conveys the general information.

This is exactly how I feel when I use it. I tend to be rather anal about getting the exact phrasing right when I'm quoting someone. And unlike print, it's a bit harder to convey that sentiment. It's the difference between

Jane said Tom is a jerk.
and
Jane said, "Tom is a jerk."

So I may use "like" in the first instance, to show that it wasn't an exact quote from Jane.

[ElwoodCuse]

And the computer went "beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep" and I was like, "Unnngh?!"

[Megan O']

I learned in French class about their teenspeak. Certain words are pretty much spoken backwards. The adults have a hard time understanding.

[crinklebat]

Well, as a native of the actual Valley of which the Valley Girl is native (w00t San Fernando) I'm quite amused by the idea of teenspeak. Of course when I'm with my friends we all talk val. Of course! How could we not! And I find that when I come home from their houses I have to really work to get out of the accent. "Like ohhhhhmigod it was totally amusing..." I trail off at the end of sentences and soften all my vowels into a sort of generic (thing that is written as an upside down e phonetically; I don't remember what it's called). Of course, I think that students develop dialects of their own. I come from a small high school program and find that we develop words and references that I hear nowhere else. It's an unconscious exclusion thing--we like to feel as though we're part of a group so we have special linguistic rules that only we use.

I see this also among subsets of grown-up society. Computer nerds? Helloooo? And I love reading fliers for youth events of the '60s...they had so much fun slang.

I hope to lose the val thing completely when I go off to college, though. It's really embarrassing to be caught off my guard and say something totally vacuous like, "Shut. up. omigod."

BTW, the "he's all" usage being discussed? I saw that as early as '92. But, then, I'm from the Valley.