Petition for the owners to ban leet speak

[Ben Kenobi]

It's possible to post a reply in a foreign language so long as you provide a translation.

Lafayette and I prefer to use his French if possible.

[Asmodean]

Well as for leet being understood by english speaking people...

It really depends on what language you use as the base for your leet, doesn't it?

Technically, leet can be based on any language.

Asmodean

[vovan]

Originally posted by Asmodean
Technically, leet can be based on any language.

I've never seen leet being based on anything other than English, though, hence my assumption that English-speaking people should be able to understand it. In fact, I am fairly confident that leet is an English-based phenomenon. From what I understand, the thing took start around the same time as automatic censors appeared. So that the people would essentially be able to circumvent the censors by changing their a's to @'s, i's to 1's, etc, so as to not be kicked from a chat room, or banned from the forums, and such. And seeing how back then the Internet was mostly a US thing (well, I can't speak for western Europe, but in Russia, where I lived till recently, from all of my friends, only one or two had an Internet connection up till a couple years ago), I still think it is a fair assumption that leet is based on english. Though I suppose it is true, that any latin alphabet-based language can technically be a base for leet.

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by vovansim


I've never seen leet being based on anything other than English

Neither have I, but technically it could be

Asmodean

[Snowflake]

I got a new question. Most languages can be spoken, right? Can one actually talk in 1337 (except for reading the numbers out)? I have a hard time to call 1337 a language myself. It's like misspelled words. You can still understand it (some times easier other times harder), but that doesn't mean it's actually a language, foreign or non foreign.

[rah]

Hmmm isn't spoken 1337 English?

[Skanky Burns]

If you use a very loose definition of English.

[CapTVK]

In the 8/16-bit era crackers & demo groups tried to do their best to come up with coherent and readable sentences in english. Maybe those classic text adventures had something to do with it. How else would you be able to play Zork?

Leet (1337) - speak certainly didn't originate from the hacker scene, more from the outer fringes surrounding it. The wannabees/beginners were often called "lame" or "lamers" a popular definition at the time.

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by vovansim
Right, so, pretty much, as I guessed in one of the above posts. Then I wonder, if leet speek qualifies as foreign language. I suppose not, since the english-speaking people can actually understand it, normally.

There's a reading test you can perform. try to scramble the letters in every word except for the first and the last letter and see if you can still understand it. We tend recognize words by the first and last letter even when the rest is garbled up.

The sentence listed above would become:
Trehe's a tset you can prerofm. try to scmlrbae the ltertes in erevy wrod epcext for the frist and the last lteetr and see if you can sltil usnertdand it.

Now try it with leet-speak.

[vovan]

Originally posted by CapTVK
Trehe's a tset you can prerofm. try to scmlrbae the ltertes in erevy wrod epcext for the frist and the last lteetr and see if you can sltil usnertdand it.

']['|2343'$ 4 7537 j00 k4|/| pr3r0ph|\/|. 7|2y 07 $cm1rb43 t3h 173|273zz 1|\| 3r3vee '//|20d 3pc3><7 4 73h 1 & te|-| 1@$7 17347r & c if u c@n 517i1 u$|/|3r7dA|\|d ti!!!1! j00 n00b

Sweet.

CapTVK, I certainly didn't say leet speek originated from the hacker scene. It originated from the kids that wanted to swear and not be kicked off from the chats. At least that's the impression I got.

[Urban Ranger]

CapTVK,

To paraphrase Big Cruch, Captain Cnut will not like to have his name scrambled the way you suggested

[alva]

What's happening here? Has Ming lost his key or something?!?!?

[rah]

I am surprised as well.