By Athima Chansanchai

While some may gripe about the erosion of the English language because of texting abbreviations (LOL!), teenagers all over the world have actually kept endangered languages intact through SMS messages and other social media.

YouTube videos of Chilean hip-hop rapped in Huilliche, "a language on the brink of extinction," and text messages written in regional, endangered languages by teens in Mexico and the Philippines are examples of language reborn found by Samuel Herrera, who runs the linguistics laboratory at the Institute of Anthropological Research in Mexico City.

Mobiledia's Margaret Rock's story about the resurrection of almost-dead languages also mentions the "saves" in the context of the legitimization of text-speak, such as "sexting," "NSFW" and "Twittersphere." (See links below for more.)

"Almost as soon as text messaging exploded on the world stage as a means to reach anyone, anywhere, and anytime, young people began to find a way to scale it back, make it more exclusive and develop their own code or doublespeak to use on the widely used devices," she wrote.

This makes their appropriation of the old into the new something that not only makes sense, but also drives the continuation of culture.

In fact, according to Dr. Gregory Anderson, young people need to be the ones reviving a dying language. The director of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages in Salem, Oregon, says that somewhere between the ages of six and 25, people make a definitive decision whether or not to stay or break with a language.

"If the language isn't being used by their peer group, then they reject it categorically," Anderson concluded.

So, while some text messages may seem like a foreign language — like "nom nom" — some may actually be in languages considered nearly gone. Who knows, maybe Latin will come back?

More stories:

Check out Technolog on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Athima Chansanchai, who, OMG, actually likes talking to people IRL more than online.

Athima Chansanchai