Oh hai.

For those of you who missed it the first time around (myself included), The Story of English is an excellent documentary on the history and nature of the English language. One enterprising YouTuber has posted the whole series on his channel. The videos seem quite dated, but much of the topics discussed are still relevant.

There’s another great series called The Adventure of English that’s worth checking out also.

Now for a spin on the story of English from the internet age…LOLcats. In particular, the LOLcat Bible Translation Project. Many linguists depend upon the work of Bible translators deployed around the world in remote (to us, at least) regions of the world. I happen to know a man who worked as a Bible translator and created the only existing dictionary in the world for his regional dialect. Concerns about dictionaries (and their purpose) aside, the LOLcats Translation begs a question: is LOLcats a true pidgin English? It has a history, it has its own grammar and rules, and now it has its own Bible.

Here is the Lord’s prayer in LOLcat:

Ceiling Cat Prayerz n stuffs 9 u pray leik dis: Praise Ceiling Cat, who be watchin yu, may him has a cheezburger.10 Wut yu want, yu gets, srsly.11 Giv us dis day our dalee cheezburger.12 And furgiv us for makin yu a cookie, but eateding it.13 An leed us not into teh showa, but deliver us from teh wawter. Ceiling Cat pwns all. Him pwns teh ceiling an flor an walls too. Amen. (sum aweforehtehz ad “srsly”) 14 if u sais sry Ceiling Cat will be leik s’ok iz kewl.15 if u donut sez sry Ceiling Cat will pwn u.

kthxbai.