SMS Language - History

History

SMS language is similar to that used by those sending telegraphs that charged by the word. It seeks to use the fewest number of letters to produce ultra-concise words and sentiments in dealing with space, time and cost constraints of text messaging. This follows from how early SMS permitted only 160 characters and some carriers charge messages by the number of characters sent.

It also shares some of these characteristics with Internet slang and Telex speak following from how its evolution is rather symbiotic to the evolution of use of shorthand in Internet chat rooms. Likewise, such a change sought to accommodate the small number of characters allowed per message, and to increase convenience for the time-consuming and often small keyboards on mobile phones. In addition, similarly elliptical styles of writing can be traced to the days of telegraphese 120 years back, where telegraph operators were reported to use abbreviations similar to those used in modern text when chatting amongst themselves in between sending of official messages.

Nevertheless, the invention of mobile phone messaging is considered to be the source for the invention of SMS language. In general, SMS language thus permits the sender to type less and communicate more quickly than one could without such shortcuts. One example is the use of "tomoz" instead of "tomorrow". Nevertheless, there are no standard rules for the creation and use of SMS languages. Any word may be shortened (for example, "text" to "txt"). Words can also be combined with numbers to make them shorter (for example, "later" to "l8r"), using the numeral "8" for its homophonic quality.