Do non-English speaking countries have 1337 speak on their online forums, emails, etc? What about countries that don’t use the Latin character set?
j3 |/3 5415 p45
Interesting question. I’m not aware of any 1337 speak equivalent for the Hindi language. Hindi uses a non-latin character set and looks like this :
Koreans use an array of short-hand on the internet and on their cell-phones as they use text-messaging alot.
And particularly in video games, (the kids play alot of video games), which do not support Korean language code (hangeul) so they have to communicate in their limited english or in korean shorthand. Speaking like this is usually considered “low” or “leet”.
For instance, 8 in Korean is “Pal” and 2 is “Ee”. They will often right on the screen “8282” Pal Ee Pal Ee. Because PalliPalli in Korean means “Hurry Up.”
Similary, Ship Pal is 18. Also, a swear word in korean sounding very similar to 18 is Shipbbal. So to swear at somewhere they will type something like “18!!!”
Japan also uses something similar to the Korean method. There are various words which can be formed by pronouncing sets of numbers together.
In Korean, 1004 = “chon-sa” = “angel”
Chinese also uses the number method, but all I remember is that in Mandarin 910=“yeah” and in Cantonese 5d5d5d= “hurry up!”
Don’t know what 910 would equal “yeah” in Mandarin, but one of the few Cantonese words I know is “Fie dee la”, so “5d” is a pretty natural equivalent.
This is used a lot in advertisements, as a mnemonic for phone numbers, but I have no idea if it’s used in the same way as leet. If it is, I’ve never seen it. But then again I don’t run into English leet all that often either.
jovan: I first encountered it in the 1990s when many people used it for text messaging on their phones. You could get a number of books listing the number combinations and their meanings.
Since we’re talking about text messaging in languages that do not use the latin character set… In Hindi, it is extremely common to send text messages, IM messages, informal emails, etc. using the phonetic equivalent of the words.
e.g. Tu kidhar hai ? Jaldi aaja. (Where are you ? Come soon.)
Not the same as 133t speak, but gives you an insight into how some of us cope with english only keyboards and buttons. It’s quite convenient to have a complete and meaningful conversation in this manner.
A combination of Hindi and English words is called Hinglish. You will often find people who speak primarily Hindi using a few English words in their sentences, and vice versa. There are instances of Hindi words being incorporated into the English language as well. e.g. cot, loot, thug, bandanna, pundit, juggernaut. Using Hinglish seems to be a fad among ad agencies, especially for their multinational clients.
xash: Do the telephones in India have any Hindi letters on the number keys?
Teeming Millions: What other countries do have letter or symbols on the telephone number keys as is done in the US?
No, telephones in India do not have any Hindi letters on the number keys. We have english letters on the number keys.
There are services through which you can sms in Hindi, but these use the picture and logo support on the newer cell phones to display the Hindi characters. The entry is still made in english, the service then translates your phonetic english text into a graphic that contains the message in the Hindi language.
Here is an example of how it is done, with some pics so you can see it for yourself:
http://in.mobile.yahoo.com/new/vernac/
(Note: The language displayed in the above example is Gujarati, not Hindi.
Here’s another service:
http://www.hutch.co.in/kolkataHome/ourservices/smsinhindi.asp
And here’s a company working on a Hindi language keyboard and predictive text input for sms (there’s also a flash demo through the link at the end of the page):
http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/features/stories/77297.html
I have seen a mobile phone with Chinese short-hand (I think) symbols, in addition to the english letters on the keypad.
I think the Chinese for hurry up is simply “Fie Dee”, which matches 5d pretty closely. The Chinese often add a “-ahh” sound to the end of senteces - this is why it can sound like “Fie dee la”.
In French there would be “@+”, for “à plus!”, the contraction of “à plus tard!”, “[See you] later!”
Otherwise it’s more phonetic abreviations or acronyms:
g = je or j’ai “I or I have”
mdr = mort de rire it’s like lol
stp = s’il te plait
c bo = c’est beau
oqp = occupé
moa = moi
kes tu dis? = qu’est ce que tu dis? “what are you saying?”