Tuesday 5 February 2002

Pic of the day: "My alt is pally." (Screenshot from Dark Age of Camelot.)

Dark Age of English

If you think people write hurriedly on IRC, think again. You have yet to see someone try to get an urgent message across in the middle of a heated battle, with swords flying every which way and reptiles napping at your heels.

English is a rich language, shaped by generations of the world’s greater poets, traders, craftsmen and the occasional gutter whore. Few languages, if any, have such an ample vocabulary across different social strata and walks of life. Expanded, extended and enhanced through centuries of development and contact with other cultures, it allows you a precision not just of meaning but of atmosphere.

"Pop!"

***

Enter the online world of Dark Age of Camelot, a massive multiplayer roleplaying game. Here players from Norway to Hongkong, aged mostly 10 to 50, come together to work and (mainly) fight shoulder by shoulder for honor, glory, gold and the survival of their kingdom. Some of them are fairly new to the Internet; some have experience from newsgroups or electronic bulletin boards, some from IRC, and some from MUDs or other online games. (Not least EverQuest, which seems to have shed quite a few thousand players to DAoC.) Here’s some of the less obvious phrases I have met there:

Add:	Another monster decided to join the battle against us, unexpectedly.
Alt:	Alternative character played by same player.
Ding:	My character reached a new level. Please say "Gratz" or words to that effect.
HK?:	Are you from Hongkong, by any chance?
LD:	Linkdead; character fading away because of lost connection.
Log:	Logging off, leaving the game.
Mezz:	Taking a monster’s attention away from another player (from "mesmerize")
Pop:	The area is being repopulated with monsters; monsters are popping up nearby.
Rez:	Resurrection by local cleric.
Train:	Several monsters chasing one or more adventurers. Dangerous to bystanders.

Besides, there is the usual array of abbreviations (isn’t that a too long word for such a thing?) and keyboard stenography (random examples only):

afk:	Away from keyboard.
b4:	Before.
bc:	Because.
brb:	Be right back / bathroom break.
cu (cy):	See you later; goodbye.
irl:	In real life.
l8rs:	See you later; goodbye.
lol:	Laughter (literally Laughing Out Loud).
np:	No problem; you’re welcome to it.
rdy:	Ready.
thx:	Thanks.
ty:	Thank you.
u (y):	You.

Then of course there are various pet names: Pally for paladin, skel or skell for skeleton, aggro for aggressive monster. Obvious words may or may not be omitted, depending on how much time there is. "My alt is 41 pally" = I also play a character who is a 41st level paladin. "2 to ding" = Two bubbles of experience left before I reach next level. (There are 10 bubbles in each level, so "2 to ding" means you are 80% through your current level. Mentioning your "to ding" is taken as an indication that you intend to continue the current campaign until you level up.)

An intriguing facet of the gamespeak is the lack of obscenities. Mythic has an appeal function that lets you easily complain about people who behave inappropriately, but it is probably more a matter of general atmosphere. Because the human enemies are separated into different realms with no means of communication, the members of your own realm tend to be either friendly or indifferent. I have however seen people use @@ as a statement of stunned disbelief when they observe some stupidity. Whether this means "stare" or "bleep" I know not for sure.

Racism and sexism are also absent from the language. This probably comes from the fact that character race and gender is not dependent on similar traits in the real world.

How will chatspeak and gamespeak influence the future of the English language? Probably not much. I don’t foresee the death of punctuation, grammar or capital letters any time soon - bc their so useful irl.

(Further reading: David Crystal: Language and the Internet, Cambridge University Press, 2001.)