Folium: Twitter and Language Evolution in Cities via NewScientist

Posted by LEAF Architect on Sunday, November 25, 2012 · Leave a Comment

Folium: Twitter and Language Evolution in Cities via NewScientist

We’ve covered the genesis of new and interesting words before, but for the first time in human civilization we now have the capacity to watch the evolution of language in real time!

In the past, and as recent as the last few decades, linguists would study language evolution through pieces of classic literature, periodicals, personal letters, and the remnants of child languages that branched off over time.

But now there’s Twitter, documenting the progress of civilization 140 characters at a time. And believe it or not, this is an excellent thing.

“Twitter is like a language machine, cranking out bits of communication in almost every language at every second of every day. In this manner, every single person around the world contributes to the global archive of written communication.Jacob Eisenstein at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and colleagues examined 30 million tweets sent from US locations between December 2009 and May 2011. Several new terms spread during this period, including “bruh”, an alternative spelling of “bro” or “brother”, which first arose in a few south-east cities before eventually hopping to parts of California.” – NewScientist

For additional clarification on the word “bro”, please follow this link to UrbanDictionary.

Yes, Twitter!

In the world of academia, the idea of working with data this fast and furious is a glorious concept. Hours of document searches, library transfers, and translations can now be accomplished in minutes with a simple Google search.

We can now dig deeper into the roots of language, geography, culture, and more – and do so in milliseconds!

New technology means new tools. Bring on the digital revolution!

Did I mention you can follow The LEAF Project on Twitter. Shameless plug.

Have you ever seen your friends use new words or phrases that appeared on Twitter or Facebook? Can you name some examples of what you have seen?

Can you give some examples of how popular language has changed from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s?