Language and Computers

Throughout time language has changed a great deal. Every new invention or fashion craze has made an impact in the English language and in many other languages for that fact. The computer world has made one of the biggest additions to the English language in recent time. It is simply amazing the impact that this phenomenon has had.

If you were to look through computer magazines you would see an abundance of words that were created to describe the computer world. Some of these words are hypertext, modem, Internet, RAM, and ROM. In order to keep up with this everchanging and growing field, some people have created vocabulary lists, guides to computer language, and dictionaries. You can find various examples of them on the World Wide Web. Some of the examples that I found are

Other people have actually created there own language due to the enormous impact that computers have ahd on them. Spanglish is a language created by a Spanish company who was influenced so much by the English computer terms that they had to create their own language in order for the employees to understand and be able to operate the computers. They actually have a dictionary calledCyber Spanglish Terms which the inventor of the language has managed to create in order to compile all of the words to date.

Also, new definitions for already existing words have been developed. Some words which display this are "mouse": an input instrument, "Windows": which is an application program, "Web": short form for World Wide Web, and "surfing": as in "surfing the Net".

Language will continue to grow and change forever. As long as computers remain in existence, which I believe they always will, they will continue to add to the English vocabulary. It makes it difficult for newcomers to the computer world to understand this new "lingo" however, the new dictionaries for computer terms and guides help to make it a little easier.