Linguistics in Social Networks
Andrew Laghos, Sophia Masoura, Athina Skordi

Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate language use in the multimedia social network website Youtube.com. In particular, we wanted to investigate the extent of the use of Greeklish (Greek Language written in Latin characters instead of the Greek alphabet) in our society today. Greeklish began when SMS services became available on mobile phones and the initial reasoning was that most of the phones came already setup in English, the Greek language option was not always available, and/or the switch between the languages took too many steps. Using computers however, the languages can be switched with a 2-button keyboard shortcut. The data collection included the analysis of 1000 user comments on Greek videos in Youtube. The results show that 84% of the messages were written in Greeklish. Our conclusions indicate that in addition to the technology, the informal nature of Greeklish itself also contributes to its widespread use.

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