26 | September | 2013 | Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss

The language of the future: what will it be like? Write an experimental post using some imagined vocabulary — abbreviations, slang, new terms.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us FUTURE.

Close-up Station clock Solothurn

‘old on, I don’t ‘ave to imagine any noo language or vocab, it’s ‘ere already. Just take a walk on the street and open up your ‘earoles. No real kid speaks the queen’s fing anymore. They can’t even rite it. Just stick your nose in this fb fing, it’s all done wiv letters and numbers, words ‘ve kicked it. Oo needs em, just a waste of computer space if you ask me, but don’t ask me cause I’m one of those gruftis, like old and not wiv it.

I’m speakting 2 U all by the way. Where I live, like we ‘av a lot of languages all mixed up. I ‘eard a gal talking once to ‘er mates in a shop about wot to buy. Nah it was all in Schwiizer tütsch, u ig bi sicher das dir das nit verstah. Anyhow she said wot abaht äpfelküche, ‚cos she wanted to know if she fancied like an apple pie. The girl turned round like and said, oh yeah, mi piace äpfelkküche git it. Wot she said was “Yes, I like apple pie”, the trubble being that ‘er mum and dad, ‘er grufties, came from I tie land, like Italy, and so she spoke a bit of everyfing altogether: a real mischmasch. Now we ‘ave a lot of those secondo types in Switzerland, speaking all the languages mixed up, so that’s the way it comes out. A bit of Schwiizertütsch u e bit of italianski, wotever.

I have been cutting me brain in a few bits and pieces since living in this multi culti place. I ain’t ‘ad it eesy, specially cos me own lingo is sort of English, you know, cockney. Get the gist of that, in my brain it was all cockney wiv no aches and I ainn’t got nuffing, like I’ave got somefing, but we do it all wiv two no’s wot make a yes, work that one out. So one way or the ovver fings got a bit complicated. I did a few years Ben Sherman in England, but it weren’t that way when I got to Schwiez, where they all speak a bit ov everyfing. A bit of Itie, a bit of Ben Sherman, a bit of frog (not being nasty, but they call us the roast beef). There I was stuck in the middle of everyfing, but I was in Zürich so it was the old Ben Sherman schwiizer tütsch wot made it a bit easy. Nah if I ‘ad landed somewhere in the middle, like in the röschti graben, it would ‘ave been a real eliot ness wouldn’t it. I would ‘av ben parleying a bit of frog, and a bit of Ben Sherman schwiizer tütsch and that would ‘ave been a right pickle.

Me old man parleys a bit of everyfing, but ‘e likes ‘is old Ben Sherman wiv the gruetzis and mercis and ciaous. A rite old mix-up that is. ‘E can parley a bit of the old anglo as well fank gawd but not like I do. Ain’t everyone a cockney, but this is all abaht wot ‘appens in the future ain’t it. Not that I fink it will all be cockny, it will probably be all that leetspeak or whatever. Nah ‘ow can you replace I luv you with 459. Don’t sound very romantic does it, whispering the magic numbers 459 in the earole of your mate. But then you can always add a ❤ and I ain’t found out wot that means yet either.

I fink I’ve dun enuf damage for today. It might not be the language of the future, but I fink if you fall asleep today and do the wakey wakey in 2100, you ain’t gonna understand ‘alf of wot they are talking abaht, let alone all those text fings going on in the Face bookie side. Someow I ‘ave a feeling that even the youngsters ain’t going to understand each ovver either, specially if they ‘ave forgotten wot a word looks like, with letters and all the trimmings.

I nah ‘ave only one fing to say to you all see ya 2morro

If ya want a translation like normal, then I ain’t doing it – ask Wikipedia or Bill Gates, they seem to know it all.

Daily Prompt: 2100

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