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newest language: Nerdic It's the language you learned talking to tech support Apr 22, 2008 It's long been a goal of one-worlders to develop a universal language, and for years their hopes were on Esperanto, a faux language developed in 1887 by a Dr. L.L. Zamenhof to serve as the word's official second language. It's not caught on. Indeed, new research claims Nerdic is the fastest-growing language in Europe, evolving even faster than English, a language that morphs and evolves and recreates itself daily. Nerdic is tech speak. It's the language we've all been forced to learn in order to use our computers and survive on the internet. The new research, from Pixmania, an electronics retailer in Europe, contends Nerdic has become the shared language of Europe, allowing people to communicate across borders, and as evidence it marches out the fact that the language added 100 new words last year. That's three times the number of new English words added into the Oxford English Dictionary. “It should be its own language to make it proper,” says Stuart Miles, editor of Pocket-lint.co.uk, a consumer technology site. He argues that technology has revolutionized the way people talk and that Nerdic is the outcome of that revolution. “When I was young, if you didn’t understand a word and asked someone about it, a grownup would say, ‘look it up in the dictionary.’ Now you can’t do that.” Miles helped Pixmania by putting together a list of hip and happening Nerdic words. Take RickRoll, for instance. That’s the verb used to describe one of the latest practical jokes circulating the web. It occurs when someone sends you a great sounding link but instead you are intentionally misdirected to a video of “Never Gonna Give You Up,” by the 1980s one-hit wonder Rick Astley. There’s also egosurfing, another verb, and something that is highly embarrassing to be caught doing. It’s the act of surfing the web to find – you guessed it – your very own name. Miles also points to some super techy words. There’s Wimax, the name for supersized Wi-Fi networks. And there’s femtocell, the name for the mini, in-home mobile phone masts due to become popular in the next few years. Pixmania says it has applied to Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office to have Nerdic recognized as an official language on the basis that it is spoken by 750,000 Europeans, to say nothing of all the others around the world. Here the question logically rises. Is Pixmania really serious, or is this just a prank to grab headlines? The latter seems to be the case. Secondly, the chances of Nerdic succeeding in becoming a second language look slim. Pixmania may be having fun with the idea, but serious language people are not amused. “Basically tech speak is just a variant of English," says David Crystal, honorary professor of linguistics at Britain’s University of Bangor and the author of an upcoming book on texting called “Txtng: The Gr8 Db8.” He says that in order to make it a new language, you would need thousands and thousands of new words and, importantly, new grammar. “That’s the critical thing.” Crystal notes that Nerdic has none to speak of. Colleen Cotter, lecturer in the linguistics department at Queen Mary, University of London, agrees, noting that, as fun and clever as it is, Nerdic really amounts to a lot of new words. It is more reminiscent of a pidgin form of a language. In fact, Nerdic is going to have to work hard to live up to another language popular with techies, Klingon, the language of the Klingon people in the television series “Star Trek.” This language came complete with vocabulary and grammar. “Klingon is a real language. Nerdic is just a wannabe when you compare it with Klingon,” says Cotter. *** Meanwhile, in online ratings for the week ended April 13, according to Nielsen Online, Google claimed the top spot among parent companies, followed by Microsoft, Yahoo, Time Warner and News Corp. Online. The top five brands were Google, Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live, Microsoft and AOL Media Network for the fourth straight week. Experian Group Limited regained the No. 1 advertiser spot with 2.39 million impressions, just ahead of NexTag’s 2.36 million. With just over 12 million ads served, Yahoo was again the top advertising site, well ahead of No. 2 MSN at 2.9 million.
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