Language Variety in LOL
Hello, dear wizards and witches!
I have been studying Muggles for a while now. My latest field of observation is this place Muggles created to meet up on the internet, a 'Social Networking Service' called Facebook. I joined Facebook nearly three years ago and very soon stumbled over a very weird fact, namely that there are many animals posting there. And we all know that animals, magical or not, do not talk, let alone write. Now how can they start writing online? I soon realized the cats, dogs, horses, even frogs and chickens that can be found are actually Muggles, playing as their pets. I refuse to go into the sense and nonsense of doing that. More important is trying to understand what they are saying, as this is very essential when trying to cooperate with Muggles.
So if a witch or wizard delves into the world of Muggle Understanding, it is nice to have a grasp on the languages their 'critters personalities' speak to simply understand them! All those languages have been called 'LOLspeak' by a leading website that is very often cited and shared on Facebook.
The thing that most of those animal posts have in common is that they each have their very own vocabulary. It does, here and there, include 'net speak' of some sorts. This depends strictly on where it is used! While a captioned photo (which is where all LOLspeak originated from) only has limited space to bring a message across, makes abbreviations nearly inevitable, netspeak in a normal conversation is just as frowned upon as in other circumstances.
To write as an animal includes imagining how the species would sound, if they could speak. It includes the natural sounds a cat, dog, or sheep makes. Rule number one is that all LOLspeak should be understandable for anyone who possesses a certain amount of humor.
I will use the following examples (there are many more, I have come across frogs, owls, and even a rat): 'Kitteh', as spoken by most online cats, and its counterpart 'Goggie' which represents dogs, as well as the relatively new 'Sheepspeak' (rather wooly in my experience) and 'Goatic', which has emanated from a rather large group of goats that 'live' on Facebook.
The main similarities are that they all use a certain amount of the language, especially grammar, that Muggles imagine babies use (the ones that are not yet able to or just beginning to learn to speak). Besides that you will find general misspelling of words to simulate the fact that paws, hoofs, flippers are not the best equipment to handle a keyboard with.
All LOLspeak is strictly phonetic, as adapted by the animal that is 'writing'.
Kitteh
Kitteh uses a lot of 'mew' and 'meow' sounds instead of 'you', 'u' and other sounds which are close enough to a meow in the original word. Nice examples for this are 'music' which Kitteh turns into 'mewsic', or 'amewse' instead of 'amuse'.
The same goes for 'ur', 'pr' 'par' which is translated into 'purr' sounds, e.g. 'princess' in Kitteh will be a 'purrincess'. Kitteh users tend to specially emphasize on words including these sounds, just to make the words sound 'cattier' — someone using Kitteh will use the word 'purrambewlater' (perambulator) instead of 'pram' just to be able to add more cat-like sound. Kitteh can be very sarcastic.
Example Kitteh words
Owner, female: Meowmy
Owner, male: Paw
Human: Hewmin, Hoomin
Family: Famewly
Food: fud, noms
Friend: Furrend
LOL: MOL (meowing out loud)
Goggie
Goggie is very similar to Kitteh, but there can be differences depending on the size of the dog. While Kitteh usually has the same slightly aloof, somewhat bored and not too interested, usually slightly sarcastic approach, Goggie can vary from 'small, yelping and overexcited' to 'large and laidback' with all the different shades in between. For instance, a posting Yorkie will 'speak' more baby-like than a Golden Retriever.
But still Goggie has a lot of keywords used by (mostly) all dogs, and all howling-like sounds may be exaggerated. Goggie does usually not use a lot of sarcasm, but they can have a tendency to gloat.
Example Goggie words
Owner, female: Maw
Owner, male: Paw
Human: Hoomin
Family: Fambolly
Food: Noms
Friend: Furrend
LOL: BOL (barking out loud)
Sheepspeak
Sheepspeak differs a lot from Kitteh and Goggie. Sheep expand a lot of 'a' and 'e' sounds in the accented syllable (more than two 'e' at least to avoid misunderstandings, as a lot of 'ee' words actually exist). 'I' usually is replaced by 'me'. 'We' is 'usses', mine turns to me's. (as in me's fwiends is bestest) Sheep like to replace 's' with 'sh' sounds ('shpeak' instead of 'speak'). Naturally one has to take care that there have to be exemptions, as the word 'sits' proves.
Most verb endings are elongated, like 'sitting' turns into 'sittering' 'interested' into 'interestered'. Sheep tend to start a word and get lost in letters on the way, e.g. 'available' becomes 'availabibble'.
Sheepspeak is very much inspired by the way the famous Children's TV puppet 'Lamb CHOP' talks.
A lot of 'r' sounds are replaced by a 'w', 'U' and 'You' sounds are preferably written 'Ewe' (Universe = Eweniverse) Sheepspeak is always friendly, and sarcasm is only used under the guise of innocent wondering.
Example Sheepspeak words
Owner, female: Maaah
Owner, male: Baaah
Human: Ewemin
Family: Fambly
Food: Clover (or Clovah)
Friend: Fwiend
LOL: BOL (baahing out loud)
Goatic
Goatic is very similar to Sheepspeak in most ways, but has certain immense differences. Goats exaggerate everything; a certain thing is not 'the best' it is 'bestest' (or 'worstest'). Goats have a rather sharp tongue, for instance 'children' of any sort are 'brats' (the use of the word 'kids' for anything but actual baby goats is rather frowned upon). 'E' sounds can be expanded, but not as often as in Sheepspeak.
Example Goatic words
Owner, female: mommy, two-legged female
Owner, male: daddy, two-legged male
Human: Humin
Family: Famly
Food: wants
Friend: Fwiend
LOL: MOL (Meeh-ing out loud)
Just a note on the side, none of these 'rules' are written in stone, just things I observed through reading a lot of examples. Attempts have been made to write LOL dictionaries, but in the end, the vocabulary depends on the single individual who writes it, and that is part of its charm.
I hope this short excursion is helpful to all wizards and witches who are interested in Muggle Behavior.