A leading linguist has claimed abbreviating words in text messages is making youngsters' spelling better rather than worse (file image)

It was condemned as a 'digital virus' with many fearing standards of literacy would plummet.

But text speak has not been the disaster for language many feared and one leading linguist has claimed it actually improves people's writing and spelling.

Professor David Crystal, an honorary professor at Bangor University, said those who text regularly were found to be 'concentrating their minds' on the relationship between sounds and written words.

The linguist, who has written more than 100 books on the English language, pointed out a new generation is 'constantly' reading and writing online.

'People say text messaging will harm your spelling. No...It helps you to spell better,' he said at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in Dubai according to the Daily Telegraph.

'This is because it focuses your mind on the connection between sound and letters.

'The best texters are the best spellers.

'People say young people don't read and write any more.'They may not necessarily read... Shakespeare or Charles Dickens, but have you ever seen a teenager not reading?

'Young people read probably more than I did when I was that age.'

He said the digital age had not necessarily heralded a 'linguistic revolution' in the way critics had predicted and said the 'moral panic' of the potential change has not been justified.

Professor Crystal's studies have found around 2,000 new words developed as a result of the digital age, including terms such as blog and twittersphere.

He said additions have so far not had a major, or negative, impact on the English language, which has more than one million words.

The linguist said many abbreviations such as 'c u l8r' are not commonly used by modern teenagers.

Professor Crystal also claimed that hashtags, used on Twitter, are simply a new method of managing and classifying information and were likely to stay.

Professor David Crystal dismissed claims youngsters were not reading as much today as they had done in the past

His comments dispel previous claims abbreviated language was worsening teenagers' grasp of the English language.

In 2012 a study claimed the grammar standards of school pupils aged 10-12 had slipped as a result of constantly using shortened phrases.

Researchers urged parents not to communicate with their children in text speak to avoid their abilities suffering more.

Last year it was claimed Britons spent more time using mobile phones, computers and handheld tablets than they did sleeping.