What used to be an active verb that required shouting Hahaha! with exaggerated head movements and flailing arms has now been banished to the virtual world where LOL and ROFL reign supreme. Since we cant burst out into hysterical laughter, chuckle, snicker, guffaw, crack up, giggle or break into a big toothy grin via text or social media, the worlds online community have created their equivalents- a host of different ways to convey meaning.
Now, we can laugh without really laughing.
In an era when text messages can be written in emojis, the invention and use of laughing acronyms in the digital realm has come to symbolize a lot more than what it appears. Central to the human spirit and one of many emotive functions of language, a virtual hahaha sends meaning through length and context. For example, hahaha can mean something completely different to an isolated ha.
What makes virtual laughter so interesting is that we are all hearing the same sound but creating different interpretations of it. This is referred to as onomatopoeia- a word that phonetically reproduces the sound it describes, like animal sounds oink, chirpy or meow. The Indonesian wkwkwk, believed to have first been used in the online gaming community, evolved from the word ngakak. Onomatopoeias are not the same between foreign languages, hence the reason why hahaha in English is equivalent to wkwkwk in Indonesia.
How breezy would international diplomacy be if diplomats were armed with a book on how to laugh, sneeze and burp in every language?Below are some different ways laughter is expressed behind our computer screens:
55555- Thailand
The number 5 in Thai is pronounced ha.Instead of writing hahahah, Thai speakers express their laughter numerically with 555.
www- Japan
Originating from the Kanji character for laugh which is pronounced warai. In online chat rooms, warai became shortened to w and then www, much the same way ha evolved into hahaha.
rsrsrs- Brazil
Rsrsrs is an abbreviation of the word risos (laughs).
nnn- Israel
In Israel, the letter n is pronounced kh. So khkhkh sounds like hahaha.
*asg*- Sweden
An abbreviation for asgarv which means intense laughter.
MDR- France
Mdr= mort de rire, meaning dying of laughter.
Jajaj- Latin America
LWKM and LWKMD- Nigeria
LWKM translates to Laugh wan kill me & LWKMD translates to Laugh wan kill me dead
So, are you ready to take your laughs international?
(brl/red)
