Forums / Discussion / Meme Research

For this weekend, I propose an interesting survey for ESL / bilingual KYM researchers. Since loanwords from English are pretty commonplace in many non-English speaking regions, can you think of any Internet slang terms that are derived from English words and used locally?

Shitstorm was recently entered into the German equivalent of the OED.

Also, I think a lot of forum-related terms have made their way into other languages directly from English, rather from more accurate translations. For example, these are used in Spanish and French:

• Spam
• Troll
• Leech/Leecher (i.e. torrents)
• Topic
• Flood
• Newbie/Noob
• Lurk/Lurker
• Bump
• Hack/Hacker
• Lock

Japan:

• ROM (Read Only Member, pron: Romu) – "Do ROM for 6 months" (半年ROMれ, Hantoshi Romure) is a very common phrase for newfags in 2channel or some online communities.

• Handle / Handle Name – Kote-han (コテハン), a shortened term of "Fixed Handle Name" (固定ハンドルネーム, Kotei Handle Name), is the term refers to user names in anonymous board communities (eg. 2channel and Futaba Channel/2chan ).

• Warez – It's pronounced "Warezu" and usually shortened "Ware" (割れ). Not only office applications or PC games, but also console game images for emulators are called Warez.

• DOM (Download Only Member, pron: Domu) – it was frequently used in Warez web pages around late 90's. After WinMX, Gnutella or P2P file exchange softwares began to appear in early 2000s, it has been disappeared from people's dictionary.

in Greek we've got loads of neologisms deriving from English. Just add the suffix -aro (-αρω) to turn it into a verb. For example "spam-aro" (σπαμάρω) means "I spam". Also, "troll-aro" ("τρολλάρω") means "to troll".

Another word I can think of is "to download". In Greek it's "κατεβάζω", literally meaning "to take down", which I'm guessing is a direct translation. Same with "to upload" ("ανεβάζω" = "to take up")

AFAIK, also in Italian there are many english words conjugated with Italian grammar rules to form a verb.
For instance:

• Downlodare = to download


• Spammare = to spam


• Scannerizzare (even if it's so common that is considered an Italian word) = to scan


• Trollare = to troll


• Chattare = to chat


• Lolloso (or sometimes lollico) = something which is very LOL


• Bannare = to ban

And so on…
Apart from verbs, there are many other words commonly used in Italian, such as:

• Thread


• Troll


• Forum


• BRB


• AFK


• IMHO


• (almost every english acronym used on the web)


• Board


• Admin

There are so many words that it would be impossible even thinking about listing them here. Here you'll find a small portion of such words.

Butthurt appears quite often in Polish, more often than in English imo.

Most Dutch loan words aren't really unique to internet slang or gain a new meaning. Reason for this is that Dutch isn't one of those standard translations tv shows and video games always get. For a long time we had to do with English subs on tv shows and nothing in vidya, making it more easier for us to master the language. Kids shows gets translations nowadays (adult programs is still English with subs), vidya is slowly getting there.

One fun fact that stands out though is that "lol" (Laugh Out Loud) is a Dutch word that would translate to "fun" in English. It's used in both ways because of that.

Opspe wrote:

Also, I think a lot of forum-related terms have made their way into other languages directly from English, rather from more accurate translations. For example, these are used in Spanish and French:
* Spam
* Troll
* Leech/Leecher (i.e. torrents)
* Topic
* Flood
* Newbie/Noob
* Lurk/Lurker
* Bump
* Hack/Hacker
* Lock

Out of that list, Spam, Troll, Noob, Hack(er), Leech(er) (and Seeder on that) and Lock have gained common usage in the Dutch language.

Actually all of them, but those are more common.

Most of russian and lithuanian words, that have anything to do with internet, have been loaned from english. It's quite pointless to make the list, seeing that most things will be there. But no, i can think of no words that have changed their meaning in that transition.

In lithuanian, however, there is a big (government-based) movement to cleanse the language of foreign words. The same exists in russian, but on a much smaller scale. It has to do with the fact, that russian is, while not as common as english, still is a large and flourishing language, while lithuanian has only a few million speakers and is at a real, even if relatively long term, risk.

• Up(load) – usually used like Upu (うｐ) or Upuru (うpる, lit. Do uploading sth). "p" in "うｐ" isn't a wrong spell, but this combination of hiragana and alphabet is the right spell.

• Account – usually shortened Aka (垢). The kanji character originally means "scurf".

• Server – usually shortened Saba (鯖). The kanji character originally means "mackerel".

• Stealth Marketing – usually shortened Sutema (ステマ). This word got the gold prize in 2012 Japanese internet vogue word contest.

In addition to most of the things that have been said, France has a thing for the word "buzz" when it comes to internet trends.
"Phishing" too.

Coined to Turkish;
Caps – Probably derived from 'caption'. Instead of classic Impact font with black outline, it's created as red banner on white caption in any font (probably because of its ease in MS Paint and nationalist reference to Turkish flag's colours. e.g.: incicaps.com). Also used as all types of images in 'İnci Sözlük'.
Ban – Coined, mostly in Turkish forums.
Up – Thread bumping post on forums. Which is also recognized as banning reason, as a way of spam/flood in few forums I know.

I speak a moderate amount of Spanish and know of a few English loanwords, but none that are Internet slang beyond what opspe has listed. Most are just simple terms related to the Internet rather than true slang (e.g. "el email" rather than "correo electronico," "el webcam," "el chat," etc,), and like all English loanwords in Spanish, they take on the masculine gender.

The only one I might add just because of its uniqueness is "los FAQ" -- not slang in English as much as it is just a normal acronym, though perhaps it fits the bill as "slang" in Spanish. If one were to translate "frequently asked questions" into Spanish, it would roughly be "preguntas frecuentes" or maybe "preguntas mas frecuentes."

The disparity between the acronym "los FAQ" and its translation compared to other borrowed acronyms that have relatively close Spanish translations ("el CD" which can be translated as "el disco compacto") at least makes it an interesting case, if not true Spanish Internet slang.

Also, don't forget Laggare (to lag),

Spawnare (to spawn)

Taggare (to tag)

Schedulare, (to schedule)

Splittare (to split)

Switchare (to switch)

Matchare (to match)

Loggarsi (to log in)

In Brazilian Portuguese, most terms are turned into verbs by adding ando

floodando (to flood)

trollando (to troll)

upando (to upload something / level up in a game)

stalkeando (to stalk someone)

There are also adjectives such as noob / newbie, hacker and so on.

Korean:
The word 'troll' is usually used exclusively in the game League of Legends, referring to feeders or those who are just really bad at the game, but I haven't seen much of the word used outside the Korean LoL community. The word w/ similar connotation in Korean internet slang would be 낚시꾼 (nak ssi kkun – literally fishers).

More examples include:
ㄹㄷ (r.d.) – 'ready' [often used in gaming community to indicate one is ready to start the game]
오크 (orc) – referring to a very ugly person
포스 (force) – an impression that one leaves
다운 (down) – to download
득템 (deuktem) – a combination of 득(to acquire) and 아이템(item). Means to acquire something
디스 (diss) – to look down upon
레알 (real) – similar usage to the english word real/really, used as an exclamation (like 'really?')
닉 (nick) – short form of nickname
브금 (begeum) – background music. Transcription of when BGM is just read as it is.
어그로 (ageuro) – originated from the word 'aggressive'. Similar to english slang 'attention whore,' or the act of being one
케바케 (kebake) – shortened form of 'case by case'
팩트 (pekteu) – Fact. Something that can't be denied

this is all I can think of as of now. Will update as soon as I think of one.

UPDATE:
귀차니즘 (guichanism) – a combination of 귀찮다 (guichanta: lazy in this context) and the english suffix 니즘 (-nism). A noun that refers to the act of being too lazy to do anything
네티즌 (netizen) – netizen
쉴드 (shield) – an act of protecting a person being criticised. Usually used as 쉴드치다 (shield chida)
루저 (loser) – Originated from a Korean TV show where a woman referred anyone shorter than 6' as 'losers'. Generally refers to those socially inferior.
~밍아웃 (~mingout) – an act of person openly admitting that he/she is part of a group. Originated from the word 'coming out,' as in self-disclosure of one's sexual preference/identity. Ex) 롤밍아웃 (lolmingout – disclosure of playing League of Legends)
훼이크 (hweikeu) – originated from 'fake.' Refers to trickery, or an act of trickery. Similar to the word 'troll,' along with 낚시 (nakssi – to fish)
ㄴㄴ (n.n.) – shortened form of '노노 (nono).' An expression of denial.
ㅎㅇ (h.i.) – shortened form of '하이 (hai).' An expression of greeting.
ㅇㅋ (o.k.) – shortened for mof '오키 (okay).' An expression of approval.
셀카 (selka) – short form of 'self camera.' Refers to selfie
크리 (keurie) – originated from 'critical.' Used to emphasise something.

Personally I've never heard neither matchare nor schedulare, but I won't be surprised seeing them used. I won't be surprised either if there would be other english words used by the Italian internet community that I personally don't use, like download (I prefer the Italian scaricare), or many other words I don't even know.

There seems to be many similarities all around the world. Every language has some words borrowed from English and we can easily understand some of them.

In Polish there are many English loanwords, especially computer-related. Many verbs are created directly from English equivalents, but basically you can create a verb from anything: trollować – to troll, banować – to ban, hackować – to hack, spawnować – to spawn. The last one is very weird because you read part "spawn" like in English and "ować" like in Polish. Some words look differently but are read just like in English e.g. hejt – a hate, hejtować – to hate. There are definitely more words like this, but some of them are used locally and not very widespread. Other words are taken from multiplayer games and preserved in original or shorter form. There are also words that already have translation and that translation is more often used, e.g. we usually say ściągać/pobierać (to download) instead of downloadować. Sometimes I have a problem when I need to explain something in Polish about things I read in English, because there is no good or existing translation to some words yet, so I use English words instead.

I think English became a bridge to worldwide communication and it spreads to other languages. Can language be a meme?

Well, I'm not an ESL person, but I worked on some Hebrew meme entries, a language not yet mentioned here. There definitely are English loanwords, but one funny-sounding example is that Hebrew plurals are formed by adding "ים" to the end of a word, pronounced "-eem". The Hebrew word for "memes" is "ממים" which is pronounced "meemeem".

Digging up the research thread from back then, I see mention that "here in Israel it’s funny to incorrectly turn English words into Hebrew ones."

@gnolex: Language is definitely a meme, and not just for April Fool's Day.

Here in France, they use "FAQ" as is, except that it's been backronymed to "foire aux questions" which roughly translates to "Question Fair" or "Question Market". There are a few others that are amusing: CD-ROM is officially translated as "cédérom" which is just a phonetic transcription of the English acronym, which leads to the self-contradictory "cédérom réinscriptible" (CD-RW) which would translates into "compact disc – rewritable read-only memory ". "Mail" or "mél" is widely used for email, but never as a verb, along with the official "courriel".

A lot of English derived words are use in Spanish, for example:
Trollear- To troll
Spam/Spammear-To spam
Lol
Bannear- To ban
Spawn/Espawnear-Spawn/to spawn
Teabaggear- To Teabag
Chattear-To Chat
Red/La red- Refers to the internet and/or internet connection , an example of it's use could be: Ey, ¿estás connectado a la red?
Login
Hacker/Hackear. To hack
App/El app/apps- Applications, Apps
ETC.
Most, if not all internet slang words are used in Spanish. If it's required, I can do more research regarding there uses or applications, but it's similar to it's original concept.