Unlearn English with Zlango
13 02 2007Zlango has received $12M funding from Accel Partners (fyi, the facebook investors) and Benchmark Capital. The service they provide is a text-to-icon translation service. I see it having immense impact among the IM users of ages 10-16 , also regarded as the next generation of kids who already are struggling with their English writing. Zlango, if successful, will eradicate the use of english over the web. We will enter the Web Version of the Caveman Era.
Here’s a horrible peek into the future, with the Adam and Eve story from the Zlango site.
I think its a ridiculous idea. I already dislike people who use too much icons to talk in IM, why the hell do I want more? Did I tell you this site was created by the Israelis? Man, I should emigrate there, my fart could probably be the next bio-fuel to solve the world’s problems. 
looks crazy! hieroglyphics, here we come
ggw
500 years on, english will look so tedious and historians might think of it as a “Dark Age” of human writing. our return to hieroglyphics begins…
It is not a bad idea, You should look at what the Japanese kids do. They have invented their own lingo using special characters and the russian script available on their phones. This lingo helps when they don’t want to say anything specific but just acknowledge or pass a remark. Or the Chinese who use numbers to denote longer words Eg. 521 = wo ai ni etc. Also, human language has always evolved with the medium. Alphabets came about because of scrolls and paper. Mobile phones and digital screens provide even richer medium and newer types of representations will emerge.
so its true, we are witnessing the evolving of a new language, or say dialect (Digitalese, anyone?) from the 3rd screen. =)
if you bothered to look deeper into this, as i did, you would probably not be so quick to call it ridiculous. like you, i was sceptical initially, but after talking to a zlango rep extensively, and bothering to try it out, i became pretty impressed.
you must have written this when you were oxygen-deprived with all your farting
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