New age lingo – Evolution or Degradation of English as a method of communication

If you are a parent to a pre teen or young adult you must already be facing a language crisis at home, evaluating your own knowledge of English, wondering at a completely new form of the language being used by Gen Z or Gen Alpha. At times you may feel totally at a loss of any form of comprehension, and who wouldn’t when a word like ‘skibidi’ can stand to mean good, bad or totally nonsense depending on the context. You need to be privy to all the drama going on in the lives of Gen Alpha children which itself is a monumental achievement given their level of social responsiveness and favour for secrecy.

This type of lingo has been said to be originating from a sensory loss or numbness originating from watching very low quality online content bordering on crass humour.  ‘Brain rot’ managed to be named Oxford Word of the Year in 2024. Observing that these are words universally used and understood by the online junta, some of these words such as Gyatt, No Cap, Rizz, Sus and Yass are now part of everyday language spoken casually.

Brain rot is experienced as a result of incessant mindless scrolling while ignoring more important or crucial tasks. This negatively affects the viewers personal life, impacting family relations while giving a false sense of belonging to those who mutually understand such gibberish. Though it has not been labelled a medical condition it definitely causes mental fog and reduces sharp focus resulting in lethargy and unwillingness to participate in productive work.

Mass media has led younger netizens to believe that sounding cool and speaking differently gives them a special identity. The impact of this Gen z lingo is so profound that a polyglot Youtuber named Xiaoma was invited to speak at a high school for Language Week and he delivered the whole dialogue in Gen Alpha slang much to the amusement of the audience.

To top it all there is Italian Brain rot which is sometimes so musical that the brain rot characters have found favour among a huge number of Gen Alpha young adults who then go on to make similar brainrot characters of their own by distorting common adjectives and combining them with nonsensical rhyming inanimate objects or even living beings. Do not trust me? Google Bombardilo Crocodilo. Go figure!

Memes are turning into brain rot, brain rot is the new language and half the adult population worldwide is absolutely oblivious to this silent shift in dialect which is shaping English in a very twisted yet immensely popular way of speaking. Doomscrolling being an iconic word which implies mindless scrolling of useless content. What is alarming is that this generation knows it is rubbish yet manages to find meaning in chaos and come out trumps when it comes to sounding cool and keeping things under control.

Whether this is a generational fad or evolution of English as a world language, the experts will definitely turn in their graves at the mere mention of some of these words. No cap.

Also Read: Amazement: The Journey Of Wonderment