[Sigia-l] Textonyms

[Jonathan Baker-Bates]

On Fri, 2008-02-08 at 01:28 -0500, Ziya Oz wrote:
> This simply proves that:
> 
>     1.  Some people are insane
>     2.  Some have way too much idle time
>     3.  You can never fully anticipate what 'users' will do with your
> product
>     4.  "Don't Make Me Think" is over-rated
>     5. The only sane people left in the world are the ones who don't use
>         cellphones...like me!
> 
> <http://tinyurl.com/yqh9uo>
> 

Your points 1, 2 and 4 show that you indeed do not own a mobile phone
because you imply that people are expending extra effort to do this when
in fact the opposite it true. 

What's being described in the article is arguably a type of creole
because the language is mediated by the environment - in this case T9
(or similar) predictive text. They would have initially found it more
convenient to stick with the default choices T9 provides. But I admit
it's closer to something like verlan or pig latin really because there's
a strong cultural and stylistic imperative.

Creoles are fascinating though. I have been trying to find out more
about a very exotic one that existed in Australia for several years
during the second world war. An old soldier told me that he had to learn
"the local lingo" when stationed in Australia in about 1939. This was a
creole allowing British, ANZAC, Pakistani, Philippine and some other
non-English speaking troops to communicate with each other in order to
manage a large supply operation there. Without the "lingo" they would
not have been able to do their jobs.

I transcribed a short example he gave me as a demonstration of what
appears to be a mixture of English, Hindi, Tagalog and cockney slang:

On opening up some ration packs, a soldier might exclaim:

"Taro china, koolo zift! Duff scoff p[ea]chy if imbashe no budly 'em."

Translated into English, this would mean:

"Hey mate, the whole lot's gone bad! Someone's going to have some rotten
meals if they can't get their sergeant to swap 'em."

By the end of 1946, the troops had been demobilised, and with that the
creole they had made.

Jonathan