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Wikispeak
[edit]Wikispeak is a language that was first spoken in early medieval Wikipedia and eventually became a site-wide lingua franca. It is named after the Wikipedians, one of the tribes of hopeless wikiholics that migrated to an area of the World Wide Web that later took their name, as www.wikipedia.com. (No, that's not a non sequitur. Don't think too much about it.) Both names derive from wiki, a Hawaiian word meaning 'quick'. The language is closely related to Netspeak and, to a lesser extent, Newspeak, and its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Internet languages, particularly Cyber-slang, and to a greater extent by 1337 (Leatspeak).
Wikispeak has developed over the course of exactly 23 years, 9 months, 2 weeks and 6 days. The earliest forms of Wikispeak, a group of dialects brought to Wikipedia by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the early 21st century, are collectively called Old Wikispeak. Middle Wikispeak began in late 2004 with the conquest of Wikipedia by foreigner invaders; this was a period in which the language was influenced by English. Early Modern Wikispeak began in late 2006 with the the printing of the King Jimbo Bible and the start of the Great Article Shift.
Through the worldwide influence of the Wikipedian Empire, Modern Wikispeak has been spreading around the world since 2009. Through all types of printed and electronic media, and spurred by the emergence of Wikipedia as a global super-encyclopedia, Wikispeak has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation, law, pornography, and others.
Wikispeak is the largest language by number of speakers, and the second-most-spoken native language in the world, after Standard Chinese. It is the most widely learned second language and is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 161 sovereign states. There are more people who have learned it as a second language than there are native speakers. It is estimated that there are over 2 billion speakers of Wikispeak. Wikispeak is the most commonly spoken language in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and Mars, and it is widely spoken in some areas of the Caribbean, Africa, South Asia, and the Kuiper Belt. It is a co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union, and many other world and regional international organisations. It is the most widely spoken Internet language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers. Wikispeak has a vast vocabulary, though counting how many words any language has is impossible. Those who speak Wikispeak are called Wikispeakers.
Modern Wikispeak grammar is the result of a gradual change from a typical Indo-European dependent marking pattern, with a rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order, to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection, a fairly amorphous SVO word order and a simple syntax. Modern Wikispeak relies more on made-up words and less on common sense for the expression of complex arguments, aspect and mood, as well as aggressive constructions, interrogations, and some investigations. The variation among the accents and dialects of Wikispeak used in different countries and regions — in terms of phonetics and phonology, and sometimes also vocabulary, grammar, and spelling — can often be understood by speakers of different dialects, but in extreme cases can lead to confusion or even mutual unintelligibility between Wikispeakers.
Some of the above was copied from the lead of English language, and slightly modified for maximum homour.
Dialects
[edit]Dialectologists identify many Wikispeak dialects, which usually refer to regional varieties that differ from each other in terms of patterns of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. The pronunciation of particular areas distinguishes dialects as separate regional accents. The major native dialects of Wikispeak are often divided by linguists into the two extremely general categories of Mainspeak and Talkspeak.
Mainspeak
[edit]As the place where Wikispeak first evolved, the Mainspace is home to the most boring dialects, collectively called Mainspeak. Within the Mainspace, the Formal Pronunciation, an educated dialect of Wikispeak, is traditionally used as the broadcast standard and is considered the most prestigious of the Wikispeak dialects. The spread of Formal Pronunciation through the media has caused many traditional dialects of rural Wikipedia to recede, as youths adopt the traits of the prestige variety instead of traits from local dialects. At the time of the Survey of Wikipedian Dialects, grammar and vocabulary differed across the site, but a process of lexical attrition has led most of this variation to disappear.
Talkspeak
[edit]Talkspeak is a less formal dialect of Wikispeak, estimated to be spoken by 100% of Wikipedia's uneducated proletariat, and even by some of its social elite. Key features of Talkspeak include poor grammar and poor sentence construction. Talkspeakers usually exhibit poor forethought, flaming, threats of violence, and excellent badassitude. Talkspeak has a fatality rate of over 100%.
Wkspk
[edit]A variety of Talkspeak, Wkspk, which is totally not made up, includes only consonants. Its pronunciation is ambiguous, and is generally up to the discretion of the Wikispeaker. It is also notoriously hard to interpret by non-native speakers. Key to Wkspk is the use of the apostrophe ('), a very important grammatical article. The ' can be used to represent the Wikispeak words I and a, and is usually understood from context. A ' replaces all Wikispeak capital vowels and vowels which are the first letter of each lexeme. Wkpsk can be summarised in the following poem:
Wkspk
- 'nc 'pn ' mdnght drry, whl ' pndrd, wk 'nd wry,
- 'vr mny ' qnt 'nd crs vlm 'f frgttn lr—
- Whl ' nddd, nrly nppng, sddnly thr cm ' tppng,
- 's 'f sm n gntly rppng, rppng 't my chmbr dr.
- "'Ts sm vstr," ' mttrd, "tppng 't my chmbr dr—
- 'nly ths 'nd nthng mr." — 'dgar 'lln P', Th Rvn
Wikispeak
- Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
- Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
- While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
- As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
- "'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
- Only this and nothing more." — Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven
Some of the above was copied from the lead of English language#Dialects, accents, and varieties, and slightly modified for maximum comedic effect.