New language area: netspeak/chatspeak/quakespeek

[formerly known as hf]

First off - I am not taking the piss. This is a serious suggestion, and I will be willing to translate if there are enough interested parties.

As far as I can remember, I need 4 more players willing to get this new language area rolling - someone to market it (?) and at least 3 more to play.

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1st off - im nt tkn da piss. Dis is serius n i wll trnslte if there is nuff players 4 sum pwnage

da area wll hv characters spkn 1337 n netchat lol

AFAIK, i need 4 mre peeps |DD

[Leo Luncid]

How interesting...

I guess I would like to play in that area; would like to learn all that lingo. But I'm guessing you actually have to type that way, huh?

[Chris Johnson]

HF - Please add your suggestion to the thread set up for suggesting new language groups

In which other language could you play Cantr? - Which should really be stickied so I've done so

[Surly]

*stab stab stab*

You know CJ... the title of that thread is not very clear... I keep forgetting what the thread is for...

[Piscator]

Could anyone translate some typical Cantr phrases like "a man in his twenties" or "You skillfully hurt xxx using yyy, who loses zz percent strength" into netspeak, please. Just to get the feeling.

[Jos Elkink]

Aren't leet and internet talk too different for one language area? The two examples look rather different to me ...

[formerly known as hf]

Could anyone translate some typical Cantr phrases like "a man in his twenties" or "You skillfully hurt xxx using yyy, who loses zz percent strength" into netspeak, please. Just to get the feeling.

"4 |\/|aN 1|\| iz 20s"

"U |-|4x0rz wit ur 1337 5|<llZ! xxx \/\/it yyy n hertz em 4 zz"

Jos has a valid point - leet and internet slang are fairly different. But both are variants of English, and both, when used, are often used together.

1337 comes in a vairty of scales - my example above was heavy. Much internet slang often has a small amount of 1377 within, usually for effect. I would suggest that the language area just be internet speak, or a mix of internet speak and a mild variant of 1337.
As long as it doesn't just start sounding like spam though...

[SekoETC]

Yes, while Internet speak is commonly used, L337 is a thing of the past and nowadays used only for two purposes: parodying people that would use it to look cool, and in an utilitarian purpose to trick filters (be that either junkmail or swearword filters). Thus it might take extensive amounts of trouble to read it fluently, even if one is totally fluent in chatspeak.

a man in his twenties - "20m" or "m/20s"

Maybe the character info could say "a/s/l: 23/m/L337 forest n".

town rulz
1.newbs: wots ur name?
2.dont hunt animls<=4
3.dont hit ppl
4.dont take stuf from grownd plz
5.dont go2 ppls bildings

u hit a cow /w bone nife for 5 dmg
u ate 200g taters

It would be illegal to end a sentence in a period if another sentence doesn't follow. And it would be encouraged to hit enter instead of using periods. All names would start with a lowercase letter, as would sentences. When uppercase letters are used, that is to mark shouting and then a whole word or sentence must be capitalized.

If implementing such an area would make speaking netspeak on other regions a CRB then I'm all for it. Not that I'd seen any older characters using it, it's just the newbies. And people tend to pretend that they cannot understand what they say, even if things like "u" could not be heard differently. But in Cantr, apparently hearing is the same as writing. One of my characters was given a Russian-English dictionary and most likely he's expected to know how to read Cyrillic though it has never been taught to him.

[Piscator]

"U |-|4x0rz wit ur 1337 5|<llZ! xxx \/\/it yyy n hertz em 4 zz"

Do I read that right as " U hexorz wit ur leet skillz xxx wit yyy and hurtz em for zz"

I would strongly recommend to use 1337 not to often. It makes my brain hurt.

[west]

I'd consider playing in slang/leet lite, perhaps

oh hai, im in ur forest
killin ur doodz.

[The Sociologist]

Yes, while Internet speak is commonly used, L337 is a thing of the past and nowadays used only for two purposes: parodying people that would use it to look cool, and in an utilitarian purpose to trick filters (be that either junkmail or swearword filters). Thus it might take extensive amounts of trouble to read it fluently, even if one is totally fluent in chatspeak.

Yeah, for that reason I don't think anyone would take a separate leet language area all that seriously. Once Big Media puts Al Pacino, of all people, in a movie called "S1M0NE", then it ceases to be k001...dude. (don't we have an emoticon for throwing up?) So I'd say the bus has been somewhat missed.

Another point to remember is that leet has impacted to some degree on several European languages, so it isn't a language as such, more a way doing language as text. In that sense it's less differentiated than dialects.

Personally, I'm not totally opposed to a small bit of leet use in some English area here or there. Since Cantr is textual, just treat it as a dialect. But note that it was always intended as a way of affirming credentials and also as a way of getting around censorship. It simply isn't the idea to translate everything you type into it. In fact, once you even begin trying to take it too seriously, then the whole point is ruined.

And that's what's happening now.

[SekoETC]

I know one leet word that doesn't have an English equivalent and that's "w00t". Unless woohoo counts. It's usually used in a sarcastic tone.

[Cherize]

Just a suggestion, you could call this place

CANTR HELL

[formerly known as hf]

Similar to grunge fans of around the same time, I did fall into that wonderful adolescent trap of deeming something cool - when it very clearly wasn't.
I can't even claim to be old enough to have used 1337 whilst it developed, but only once it had filtered down through the 'net to spotty kids...


I'll adapt the proposal to just plain chatspeak / netspeek - which can contain minor leet as wished. I can understand that the leet proposal has limited appeal...



I'm not proud of my near-fluency in leet, but one day, though, I will save the world by communicating with a 1337-speaking alien race, and halt their plans of galaxy-domination by defeating their greatest champion during a ritual game of Super Mario Kart.

Until then...

[Rusalka]

Ok, maybe I am retarded or somethin' but I don't understand most of it. Do you? Are there seriously people who write like that?