A poster asked if SMS is used in Spanish like in English which I thought was an interesting but strange question because SMS or text messaging is not confined to one language. (
http://www.dr1.com/forums/637375-post40.html). Since the surge of cell phone usage years ago and the many features offered text messaging being one of them, users of this feature will find a way to communicate via short forms, word codes etc. that form a semi universal form of codes that are mutually understood among its users. I say semi universal because although there are some standard SMS codes used in Spanish there also some regional ones that coincide with regionalisms that exist in the language.
I rarely text message. Instead of it being a quick or less expensive form of communication I find it to be very tedious. However, this does not mean I don't recognize some of the standard text message short forms used in Spanish. It would be impossible to list them all here but I came up with a small list of a few common ones. Once again, I see this having an affect on the language from an orthographic standpoint. Those who are aware of /h/ being a silent letter phonetically know that it must be written if the word has an /h/. Words with /h/ are often misspelled in Spanish. I believe that text messaging will exacerbate the problem with the misspellings of words in general and especially with /h/. Words such as hablar, hacer, hay (the verb form) are often spelled as ablar, acer, ay (ay is an interjection) by many at all levels. Text messaging serves its purpose as long as those who already can't spell well in Spanish don't deteriorate further and believe they can write like this when formal writing is required.
Here are some examples:
a-k - a menos que
a.p.s - amigas para siempre
a.p.t.l.v - amigas para toda la vida
a100do - haciendo
a1nq - aunque
ablamos -hablamos//
ablan2t - hablandote
ablando - hablando
ad+ - ademas
b.d. - buenos días
bn - bien
c% - cien por ciento
c/u - cada uno
chasgrcias - muchas gracias
cns2 - cansado
crño - cariño
d na - de nada// dn - de nada
d-dond - de donde
de+ - demás
¿dnd? - ¿dónde?
l100to - lo siento
source: diccionario SMS
Here's a thread I started in 2006 based on an article in a Colombian newspaper. Unfortunately, the link is no longer active. You can compare some of the SMS, computer short forms used in Colombia to ones you may already know. There's plenty of internet links with SMS, computer lingo etc.
Diccionario de palabras usadas en Internet
If you add to this list please do so responsibly. No vulgarities. I will just ask to have them deleted and please stay on topic. Thanks.
-LDG.
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SMS codes in Spanish
