Not necessarily an acronym, but here's a fun one for Japanese: Laughing in Japanese is warau, which gets shortened when typing to just w. If you want to laugh a lot, you would type wwww. That ends up looking like a field of grass, so that in turn gets shortened into 草 (kusa, or grass). Basically, 草 is the Japanese equivalent of lol
Also, in Chinese, thank you is often abbreviated as 3q, because when you say it out loud, it sounds like "thank you" (san kyu)
I learned pretty quickly to avoid Mario Maker levels with "wwww" in the title.
So would saying "touch grass" in Japanese be almost the same as saying "go to a comedy show?" :p
Hundreds of elden ring messages that just say "grass" or "time for grass" in random locations suddenly make sense now
In Thai, the number '5' is pronounced like "haa", so Thai people write 555 to signify laughter, similar to 'lol'.
Also, in Chinese, thank you is often abbreviated as 3q, because when you say it out loud, it sounds like "thank you" (san kyu)
This is in Japanese too.
In Korean, "Hahaha" sounds more like "kh- kh- kh-", represented by, "ㅋㅋㅋ"
Assuming you mean texting style acronyms, yeah, we have them in German and I'd assume in other languages too.
Alongside the stuff borrowed from English 1:1, there's stuff like bb for "Bis bald" (See you soon) or hdl for "hab dich lieb" (Love you)
I'd assume other languages do the same out of efficiency or laziness.
Yes. Here are some common ones in my native language, danish:
- pga: på grund af (because of)
- dvs: det vil sige (used for adding additional explaination)
- ift: i forhold til (in relation to)
I’m certain there are also some more modern slang abbreviations in use, but these change relatively frequently, like they do in English.
Those are official abbreviations that can be found in a dictionary.
The ones OP posted aren't all official. TBH and SMH are official. IMO is internet slang.
There's not a lot of consensus on internet slang abbreviations in Danish. It was more common back in the texting days, when all girls would end their messages with an S for "smiling", SS for "smiling sweetly", or KKK for "hugs hugs and kisses".
Someone once made an index: https://www.telemarkedet.dk/sms-ordbog-sms-sprogets-forkortelser
I speak Dutch, reading Danish is a trip. Dat wil zeggen -> det vil sige. And yes we use dwz.
We use plenty of abbreviations like that too. Like aub for alstublieft. Meaning please, or more literally if you would be so inclined.
Back in the 90s when I lived in Amsterdam, I also saw svp (which is actually French) used often instead of aub. I never understood why though.
Also, ff wachten for example. ff is short for effe, or rather "even". Just wanted to throw that one into the mix.
Edit: alstublieft is also a short version of "als het uw blieft"
Is there also an abbreviation similar to Swedish m.v.h. (med vänliga hälsningar) or German MfG (Mit freundlichen Grüßen)?
Mvh. exist and is used commonly in Danish. It's considered old-fashioned. The modern version is just Vh.
French :
ftg : ferme ta gueule (shut it) ntm : nique ta mere (fuck your mom) slt : Salut (hello) cv : ça va ? (How are you?) ptn : putain (fuck) srx : sérieux (really?) jpp : j'en peux plus (I'm fed up)
I love that you started with the insults mdr
A regular French thing I guess
"Mdr" is a good one as well, good catch :) MDR = mort de rire = laughing to death
There's also Cc (pronounced "cou cou") used for greeting.
In Portuguese we don't use many acronyms, but we have shorter versions of words with the vowels removed or things like that. When people tried to use acronyms we ended up with "fds" which some people read as weekend, others read as "fuck it". The only other acronyms I can think of right now are all for offenses such as fdp (son of a bitch) and cdf ("ass of iron", very old term for calling someone a nerd).
ex-USSR early rusophonic internet had a lot of original and transliterated ones but I rarely see them nowadays, and most are community-specific. Some didn't carry over, some replaced by chat stickers, and the writing\reading of longer posts itself seems like a niche now when there are audio and video messages at hand. Add there that the web space I talk about is now also fragmented and occupied by bots\dummies due to the war and many sites for international communication on russian lost a big part of frequent posters\mods and later effectively musk'ed themselves.
Those I've heard the last:
imo > кмк > как мне кажется > what I suspect is bf > мч > молодой человек > young partner wtf > чзх > что за хуйня > what's a dickshit idk > хз > хуй (его) знает > dick knows (that)A lot of newer words I googled after hearing it from kids came from TikTok and they are mostly translations of trends carried in by local influencers.
I've been saying it for years, what is a dickshit?
In Russian? There are like five basic words you make your obscene lexics from (like 'fuck' in English), and хуй (khooy) is one of them, meaning dick, and хуйня (khooy-nya) is a thing related to a dick in a bad way, like a borked project or a complicated situation, while not having a direct translation on it's own. Something like, ehm, a dick-thing? as it's a noun, just like хуета (khu-e-tah), meaning the same. There are also an adverb хуёво (khoo-yovo) meaning something isn't going great, and забил хуй (zah-beel khooy) when you discarded your dick in that situation and don't give a fuck about what's going on.
Many of them you can hear on the recordings from the ongoing war.
I'm not sure I've understood you correctly, so you can specify what you want to know.
I'd say хз (the last one) is still used very commonly, but the rest are a bit outdated and I barely see them anymore.
Another thing I thought was outdated but some of my friends use is shortening common words. "I like" would be "мне нравится" and some people save themselves a second and write it like "мне нрав".
And another thing I just thought of is "etc" equivalent in Russian, "и т.д.", this one is used officially in documents etc, it's a shortening of "и так далее", literally "and so on". And some people simplify it further by writing "итд" without spaces and dots.
One of my favorites is in Japanese. Laughing is "w" or "www" or something. The word is "warau". So then the ws, they look like grass, so people use the grass emoji, so then people write "kusa".
The number 5 is pronounced "ha" in Thai. So Thai people laugh 555 or 55555 if it was very funny.
And in Brazil its kkkkkkkkkkk 🤣
A French one is common enough that it's used in English- "Répondez, s'il vous plaît" (Respond, if you please) is where we get RSVP. "SVP" is also sometimes used as a shorthand for "please", at least in Quebecois.
There's loads, I'm kind of blanking but MDR (mort de rire) comes to mind as the lol equivalent. I think you guys in Quebec don't use it though correct me if I'm wrong. I married one of yours but I'm still missing a lot of the day to day things.
It's sometimes used here, I think it depends how English you are. I just use "lol" but my fiancée does use "mdr" with other French speakers.
I hate english speakers that use rsvp as a verb and then say stuff like "rsvp please".
RIP in peace.
Respond if you please please
I don't speak French natively but I happen to know their version of lol is "mdr", short for mort de rire (dying of laughter)
Nepali has quite a few.
का. म. पा. (Ka ma pa) - Kathmandu Mahanagar Palika - Greater Kathmandu Metro.
मा. प. से. (Ma Pa Se) - Madak Padartha Sewan - directly translates to taking of illicit substance but is used to describe DUI
ने. बि. (Ne Bi) - Nepal Bidhyarthi - Nepal student (Association)
भु. पु. (Bhu Pu) - Bhoot Purva - Past/previous.
There are more that I'm blanking out on right now.
Updoot for nepali
One that I'm aware of is "tskr" in Japanese. It's a slang term that derives from たすかる (tasukaru). The meaning depends on the context and it can mean something like either "you saved me" or "thanks for helping me".
In Thai they’ll text 555 for hahaha as 5 sounds like ha in Thai
In Sesotho, "how are you?" is "ho joang?" which gets shortened to "hj"
I just wanna throw in French‘s s.v.p. for s’il vous plait, “please“, and German’s valediction MfG for Mit freundlichen Grüßen, “with best regards/wishes/greetings”.
The latter is disappearing again I think. It was actually meant as a parody in a very popular 1999 song about German acronymization madness by the rap group Die Fantastischen 4. Somehow people then thought it was okay to use it in adult correspondence.
Or even more obvious, RSVP
n.r.p.s.v.p.
In Denmark and Norway the "with best regards" acronym is healthy and well, and I doubt it'll disappear any time soon.
Mvh Aasatru
In Spanish there's some things like "xq" instead of "por qué/porque" but it was only used in SMS messaging to use less characters. If someone talks to me like that I won't reply, it just doesn't have the same vibes as in English.
...which makes me kind of a hypocrite for using "obv" for obviously (obviamente).
A few more in case anyone is interested:
- Tkm Te quiero mucho, I love you
- Ntp No te preocupes, don't worry
- Tlj Te lo juro, I swear (to you)
- Cdt Cuídate, take care (of yourself)
- Tki Tengo que irme, I gotta go
Spanish bases its texting slang around phonetics, instead of the English way of the first letter of the word
"xq xq xq xq n m kiere" is 90's msn vibe.
Absolutely. The German term equivalent to writing "Sincerely," at the end of letters is "Mitt freundlichen grußen," and it was (is?) often written as "M.f.G." There's even a song by the German pop/rock band Die Fantastischen Vier titled "M.f.G." The lyrics are almost entirely various abbreviations (here's a version of the song with the lyrics, but not the video).
Also usw for "und so weiter" - etcetera.
Of course! In Greek we say ΓΤΠ and sometimes anglicise it a gtp. It directly translates "for the dick" which means something is rubbish.
We sometimes shorten γαμώτο (fuck) το 'γμτ'
Yes, they do.
YTD.
Japan goes crazy with abbreviated words. E.g. JK for Joshi Kousei (high school girl).
Dutch has aub meaning alstublieft meaning please, and they use it in all kinds of official places.
In slovenia, we have (I know this isn't the exact same thing)
- Informal:
- LP - lep pozdrav (something like best regards)
- Formal
- itd - in tako dalje (something like etc.)
- npr - na primer (for example)
Anytime people needed to save space while texting you have acronyms(tbh) or shortenings(no 8 m8) happening so it's not surprising many languages have them.
French does.
Anytime
Newspaper classifieds used to be full of arcane abbreviations.
Now we have the internet we can look up a cheatsheet, but no longer use newspaper classifieds.
