im in ur programmz, codin in ur dialect: LOLCode and Feline Dialectology
Periodically, one goes through periods of deep metaphysical malaise. You look around at the world, wondering how such evil could flourish and such suffering could endure. You descend deeper into darkness, your faith in humanity waning, wondering why we were ever born into this cruel world. Then, suddenly, you realize that somebody has written a programming language based off of the dialect of Lolcats/Cat Macros, and your faith in humanity’s inherent good is completely restored.
LOLCode is a computer programming language concept which draws its vocabulary from the recent internet sensation of captioned cat pictures. Although not fully functional yet, it’s still linguistically fascinating on many different levels, and deserves mention.
i has dialect
One of the most interesting parts of this programming language is that it can exist at all, and the fact that it can goes a long way towards establishing the legitimacy of a feline dialect.
Imagine that I wanted to create a programming language based solely off of star wars vocabulary. I would likely start by finding a donor language, whose basic syntax and ideas I would borrow. Then, I would begin to slowly find equivalents and their translations.
Some equivalent/translation pairs might be obvious. ‘Death Star’ for a verb which meant “remove file”, maybe ‘carbonite’ for “pause process”. One could even get a bit more ornate and incorporate some movie quotes. Perhaps “there is an error” could be coded with ‘It’s a Trap!’, and “load this program” could be ‘Commence Primary Ignition’.
However, no matter how nerdy I felt at the time, my plan would be fatally flawed from the outset. Sooner or later, I would find an expression that was too niché (fulfilling just a small purpose) to have a Star Wars equivalent. I’d have to rely on a set canon of phrases to fill in the blanks, and there’s no way to work around it and still maintain the Star Wars theme.
The reason that LOLCode is so awesome is that, based on what I’ve seen so far, it doesn’t seem to have that limit. Based on my highly scientific research at icanhascheezburger.com, it would appear that LOLCat has become a full fledged dialect. There are many captioned images there, each slightly different, and each seems to fit a coherent grammatical pattern. Some linguists are starting to pick up on distinct patterns and grammatical rules, and based on the fact that any sentence can now be LOLCatted, I’m quite tempted to say that LOLCat has become a productive and functional dialect of English.
Because of this productivity of the LOLCat dialect, it would be quite possible for somebody to take any given sentence or idea and put into LOLCat, thus ensuring that LOLCode could, in theory, become fully functional without ever breaking character. This is very exciting, and very awesome.
mai translationz r not straitforwerd
LOLCode is a very special sort of translation. Conventionally, when one sits down to label a cat, the source is an English sentence (I’m yet to find any cats “en mi refrigeradora, comiendo mis comidaz”). However, here, what people are doing is finding equivalents in human/feline language for concepts, verbs, and ideas within a computer language.
Rather than being able to simply translate, they’re forced to create the inflexible, ambiguity free grammar required to tell a computer what to do. This is tough enough to do even using all sorts of abstract symbols, but to do it within LOLCat dialect and syntax is wonderfully difficult. They’re adapting a human language into a dialect, then bending it into a computer language. This is by no means an easy ask, and it’s a far more complex sort of translation than many.
For this alone, I salute the creator and contributors to LOLCode. Although it may seem silly to some, this is really some top-of-the-line linguistic work.
d00d. ur dialect is teh suxx0rs
Perhaps the even interesting than the mere fact that LOLCat has become a translatable dialect is the fact that, well, there are already people who are arguing about the “correct” way to say something in LOLCat. Take, for instance, this post on the LOLCode wiki:
I know VISIBLE is the current output command, but it’s so not LOLCAT. What if we used LOL as the output instead? So, the Count-1 example becomes:
(Code)
I think this works very well, is funny to read and matches actual LOLCAT protocol, sorta. I guess the LOL would be at the end normally.
As a linguist, this is really, really exciting. People are already trying to step in and enforce the “rules” of the LOLCat dialect. It seems like, as a “native speaker” of LOLCat, the author of this page had a distinct intuition about the “proper” means of expressing a concept in this dialect. Truly incredible.
Although this community of people has only arisen recently, I’m very excited at the potential for the later discussions of “proper” LOLCat, and the sociolinguistic goodness sure to arise from it.
o hai. i discussed ur werk.
So, author of (and contributors to) LOLCode: I salute you. This is a unique, wonderful, and groundbreaking project, and I really hope that it continues to yield such fascinating linguistic insight into the future.
Keep up the good work, and don’t let anybody convince you that what you’re building is silly or unnecessary. If there are two things that the world of technology needs, it’s probably humor and cute, fuzzy animals, and really, I can’t think of a better way to combine the two.
Alright, I’m done. kthxbye
May 29th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
[…] Followup: I’ve discussed the LOLCat dialect a bit more recently, so if you’re interested in this phenomenon and the heights it has reached, you might want to read “im in ur programmz, codin in ur dialect” […]
May 29th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Good insight pointing out that people are starting to argue about the _correct_ way to express things. One of my contributions was shot down as “hard to implement.” I guess they’re shooting to have an actual interpreter, which I think is great. But I think the language should 1) be able to express concepts difficult in other languages and 2) cover algorithms that cats might actually be interested in running.
I think the best approach going forward is, rather than mapping familiar programming concepts onto the LOLcat grammer, instead start with what meaning the grammar expresses and try to think of how to achieve that idea programmatically.
May 30th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Actually, LOLCat may be taking rudimentary steps toward non-English varieties - observe this from lolgeeks:
http://lolgeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/ben-franklin-2.jpg
The verb’s got the correct aspect and everything, but the first person pronoun, mysteriously, is in English! Could this be a simple oversight, or an indicator of further code mixture in LOLCat?
May 30th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Haha, I love that! “IM IN YR LOOP”! Now, is more correct to use “YR” or “UR”?
May 30th, 2007 at 10:49 am
K is right — it’s not just for English anymore. Irish Gaelic here: http://www.irishgaelictranslator.com/translation/viewposth.441061-highlight-lolcait.html
May 30th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
[…] I’m even more proud to report that I’ve gotten a flurry of publicity and links over yesterday’s post about LOLCode, including (I’m quite proud to say), a link from the Language Log. I’m just bragging, […]
May 31st, 2007 at 5:12 am
Great post, but “…somebody has written a programming language based off of the dialect of Lolcats/Cat Macros…”??!
No, no, oh no, please. It’s based on the dialect. “Based off of” makes absolutely no linguistic (or common) sense whatsoever.
kthxbye
May 31st, 2007 at 5:22 am
Heh. You got me, Kuahine. I suppose “based off” or even “based on” would make a little more sense there, but hey, a quick googling confirmed that at least I’m not alone in this construction. Looks like language is changing, and I’m unwittingly helping it along. Perhaps I’ll have to post about “based off of” as penace.
May 31st, 2007 at 7:47 am
oh hai im in yr commenz keepn u strate!
Ach, Will. Google hits as an indication of “social” acceptance of nonsensical syntax? What next? Number of diggs?
No. There are plenty of Google hits for child porn, too, but that doesn’t mean our “morals” are shifting. (”But Ma, everybody’s doin’ it!”)
As a student of linguistics, you’ve no doubt been trained to tell the difference between faulty usage and actual change. Please don’t exempt your own writing from that level of professional discernment. :-)
May 31st, 2007 at 11:15 am
One of my work collegues has written a lolcode interperter that works and exectutes lolcode statements. Quite amusing.
May 31st, 2007 at 12:17 pm
“Comidaz” needs an accent on the I :)
May 31st, 2007 at 3:19 pm
It would border on trivial to adapt a FORTH interpreter to LOLCODE.
June 2nd, 2007 at 3:23 pm
like any good surrealist painting, if you try to break it down, it becomes meaningless and loses its beauty. although it’s cool that people are so interested, please don’t destroy one of the truly funny things in life by analysing it to death; just let us laugh without needing meaning.
June 3rd, 2007 at 8:17 am
Have you heard of Var’aq? ;)
June 4th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Still think its needs an arithmetic IF
June 5th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Kuahine,
No offense, but it’s beginning to sound like people like you are the reason I keep writing about language change. There’s a fundamental philosophical divide here between us.
I believe that there is no “correct” language, just an accepted standard. You’re quite right, “based off of” is not particularly accepted yet, but based on conversations with other people, it’s getting there. Google supports this, by the number of people considering it to be acceptable. So, I’m not arguing that it’s “correct” in the 3rd Grade grammar sense, I’m just saying that given time, I suspect it will be, and at the very least, it will gain acceptance.
Also, I’d like to point out that you understood what I said, evidenced by the fact that you provided to synonymous constructions. The communication worked just fine, and although you have an objection to the term, it’s not because the term itself is not understandable, it’s because of your own moral feelings on the subject.
I’m also a little shocked at your equation of bad grammar usage with child pornography. You’re flirting with a whole new level of Godwin’s law there. (More info on Godwin’s Law)
I do my best to use correct, understandable grammar, but I’m also realistic, and I realize that for somebody who really enjoys correcting grammar, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to ever sate them. So, I’ll try, and I do appreciate people pointing out blatant errors.
Thanks for trying to keep me in line, but realize where the line is for most of the world.
Will
PS: Since you did offer a legitimate correction, drop me an email if you would like a link to be placed in “Links for Corrections”. I don’t want to seem like I’m discouraging people from making corrections here, even if I don’t agree with what people are saying.
June 5th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
[…] Tue 5 Jun 2007 LOL’ing All the Way to the Word Bank Posted by malcolm816 under stuff weird and interesting , Children in Pain , For Your Consideration It’s funny how much has been written on the subject of LOL Catz, and how deceavingly simple the concept is. The Cats’, suprisingly erudite, Wikipedia entry claims the language used in LOL Catz submissions (”I haz ur…,” “O hai!,” “Halp!”) is a linguistic pigin. However, a grad student from Colorado who goes by the name LinguisticMystic claims the language has involved into a full-fledged dialect. So much so that even now a programming language (click here for his post on the subject). […]
June 5th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Great post–great blog. Wrote a response post on my blog. And I’ve added you to my blog roll. Hope you’ll do the same. Hope the Rockies are still as beautiful as I remember them. Certainly better skyline there than in Brooklyn…
Best,
m
June 9th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
[…] I, for one, am extremely excited about the recent emergence of a “toy programming language” called LOLCode. I am a software developer, so the notion of building an application to help folks generate […]
June 11th, 2007 at 9:04 am
[…] stupid but very funny. It has even spawned some attempts at serious analysis, though as with anything to do with cats on the internet, this should be taken with a pinch of salt […]
June 15th, 2007 at 5:40 am
[…] For a linguist’s take on lolcatz in ur cmpooter, see Linguistic Mystic. […]
June 16th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
[…] Warning, this site may induce the following: 1. gut-clenching chuckling and laughing 2. decrease of productivity rate 3. a sudden urge to dress your pets in drag and take pictures of them in compromising positions 4. typing in lolcat dialect […]
June 18th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
[…] and a post about a lolcat computer programming languageim in ur programmz, codin in ur dialect: LOLCode and Feline Dialectology […]
June 28th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
[…] to follow the pattern of a new English dialect. Don’t take my word for this, read instead a linguist’s opinion on the matter […]
June 28th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
[…] im in ur programmz, codin in ur dialect: LOLCode and Feline Dialectology […]
July 2nd, 2007 at 8:35 pm
[…] HABIT: I sing and talk baby talk to my cat. Lately, the dialect has changed to LOLcat. […]
August 12th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
[…] Or “im in ur prgrammz, codin in ur dialect: LOLCode and Feline Dialectology” […]
August 16th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
LOLCODE…
O’Reilly’s Newest Release: LOLCODE
Originally uploaded by kn0thing
Thanks to my partner for finding this little gem for me! :)
I am attempting to post from flickr, which could be interesting - i’m not entirely sure ho…