Evolution of language

Do you think with the advent of the internet, mobile phones and the online communities that we are in the middle of a language evolution?

If you've read some of Shakespeares work you would have noticed the difference of sentence structure and use of words compared to the books written today. For example, in act 1 scene 1 of Hamlet, Bernardo says "'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco." You could interpret that sentence these days as "It's 12 o'clock, go to bed francisco." English has developed into the form it is today, sentences written 500 years ago would not be written the same today.

Now, however, is a different story. The new language form (I guess you could call it txt speak) is dispersing itself in every communication medium today. Mobile phones seem to have their very own set of rules where vowels are no longer written, but taken out of some word's completely. Where once you said "How was your Saturday night?" this is now (generally speaking) replaced by "Hw wz ur nyt on sat?" or "wat u get up 2 sat?

Online forums are now riddled with abbreviations and acronyms and such poor English that I'm sure any English lecturers who read them would weep themselves to sleep every night. For example eg: "WTF? BS HAX! LOL! IMHO, ROFFLEMAYO, AFAIK U SHULD RTFM"could actually be a proper sentence that people would understand these days. From the unmoderated forums that I've seen, grammar and spelling have taken a back seat in the communication process. (I noticed their are certain people who police this though, I think they're called the oh-so-politically-correct Grammar Nazis).If you don't know what half of those acronyms mean then maybe you've being left behind in this evolution process? Or maybe you are simply a technophobe, which would be weird considering you're taking this course.

Maybe the language is evolving to include all classes of the future? Centuries ago only the high class and wealthy became educated in the written language - as you can probably tell by the style of their writing. With the public school systems of the 20th century, most, if not all children had the opportunity to develop their written comprehension schools. Nowadays with the global reach of the internet and the new technoculture prevailant in online communities we are seeing a development of the language that is alot more relaxed on the technical aspects of form and has placed the majority of it's emphasis with only the content. Formal has taken a back seat to Informal, Strict rules to Casual ettiquette, etc etc.

Maybe this new language form is simply just a bombardment of slang from all over the globe and will simply dissolve itself into history? Im nt 2 sure.