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Dear Roland,
Here's what google defines as "Lauriat"...oh wait it doesn't have one. I also love Filipinos and their intuitive creations of words.
BUT! at least the word "lauriat" is spelt with the correct alphabets.
There's a craze in the Philippines, aside from San Marino Corned Tuna, called "Jejmon".
Urban Dictionary defines it as: those"who has managed to subvert the English language to the point of incomprehensibility and online lynch squads."
It's a new fashion of speaking and SMS texting that is suppose to be indicative of self-expression. However, there is a fine line between self-expression and just plain stupidity. Essentially, the LOLs and STFU just took on a whole new level in the Philippines, where words and numbers are put together in an attempt to formulate words. It's a popular "sub-culture" that is made of hip teenagers who are attempting to revolutionize SMS texting into a popular way of speaking, writing, and fashion. In essence, it is a type of self-expression seeks to dethrone the written word entirely.
Yes, language can be revolutionized and changed over time. That's the beauty of it. However, this type of language does not have any meaning at all! It's just putting alphabets and numbers together to form incoherent words to seem cool in the SMS world.
Since this type of writing gives me a headache to even decipher, I just wikipedia'd it to copy and paste here because just trying to translate them to English or Tagalog would counter any form of pride I could possibly have of being "Filipino." So I won't risk the chance.
Wikipedia:
"The sociolect of the Jejemons, called Jejenese, is derived from English, Filipino and their code-switched variant Taglish. Their alphabet, Jejebet, uses the Roman alphabet, including the Arabic numerals and other special characters. Words are created by rearranged letters in a word, alternating capitalization, over-usage of the letters H, X or Z and mixture of numeric characters and our normal alphabet[2]. The spelling convention shares similarities with Leetspeak.
Examples:
Filipino: "3ow ph0w, mUsZtAh nA?" translated into Filipino as "Hello po, kamusta na?, translated into English as "Hello, how are you?"
English: "i wuD LLyK tO knOw moR3 bOut u. crE 2 t3ll mE yur N@me? jejejejeje!" translated into English as "I would like to know more about you, care to tell me your name? Hehehehe!"
- aQcKuHh- means me/ako
- lAbqCkyOuHh- means I love you
- yuHh- means you
- jAjaJa- garbled words conveying laughter
- jeJejE- a variation of jAjaJa; conveys sly laughter
- iMiszqcKyuH- means I miss you
- eEoWpFhUeEhsxz - means hi/hello
Education moves to stop ‘jejemon’
DepEd discourages ‘jejemon’ texting among students
DepEd launches war against Jejemon
and my ultimate favorite point of view: DepEd urged: 'Let jejemon be; it will pass'
The fact that the Philippines' Department of Education has to decide either to "wage a war" or "let it pass" is so indicative of Filipino culture that doesn't take initiative to simply decide what is right and wrong and take measures to support it. When SMS texting becomes a part of regular schooling, then something is obviously wrong.
I'm not going to lie, I often use LOLs, LMAO, and STFU in my text messages but I have common sense not the write that in my academic papers, where my teachers would probably disapprove and demote me to kindergarten to learn my ABCs again.
Maybe, for some, they'd opt to take the liberal standpoint and just let it be because it's "not hurting anyone." But, seriously...would you want your child to speak and write "jejenese" ?? Would you find pride in that? When you work in the real world and have a career will your co-workers respect you for it? Will your classmate think you are the brightest person and someone to look up to? No!
As much as I find pride in the Philippines, I also find a lot of disappointment that catches me off guard sometimes and I find myself wondering how the hell I have lasted this long here.
t@ank yuHh 4 r3@dng 3y 670g (Thank you for reading my blog)
fyi it took me 1 minute to figure out how write that jejemon style..I feel a whole lot smarter now.)