"IDK, My BFF Jill"

A couple nights ago the school hosted an event where Spanish students came to our school for a kind of meet-and-greet so everyone could make international friends.  The event itself was not done very efficiently, as some individual Americans ended up sitting with a whole group of Spaniards, whereas at another circle, a whole group of Americans was sitting with only one or two Spaniards.  After the ice-breaker (which by the way was no more fun in Spanish than it would have been in English), we were corralled into a different room with snacks and drinks.  The problem with this was that it was so crowded, you could barely hear what the person next to you was saying.  Everyone's voices rose to be heard about the others.  The language barrier combined with the insane noise level made it incredibly difficult to get to know anyone.

After about an hour of screaming "¿QUE ESTUDIAS?" and "¿DONDE ESTA LA MEJOR FIESTA?" people started to go their own ways, but a group of us decided to go to a nearby bar.  It was much easier to hear people speak there, and I ended up meeting some really nice Spanish students.  They wanted to practice their English and I wanted to practice my Spanish, so we stood there talking to one another in our less-than-mastered languages.  But it was actually a lot of fun.

I exchanged numbers with a couple of them and we said we'd see each other soon.  Today I went to text one of them to see if she wanted to do anything today.  I wasn't sure what language I should text in, but I decided to go with Spanish.  I spelled out every word correctly to avoid any possible miscommunications.   However, the message I received back looked like it was written in a language I had never before seen.  It took me a moment to realize that was I was reading was "Spanish Text Language" (henceforth referred to as STL).  Similar to "English Text Language," words were replaced by numbers, syllables were replaced by individual letters to shorten the length of the word, and phrases were replaced by acronyms.  I was completely unprepared for this, as my Spanish classes have always focused on proper grammar and vocabulary, with the occasional outdated colloquialism thrown in.

It took me a minute to decipher the code, but eventually I was able to understand what the message said.  Unfortunately, the person was not available this weekend but suggested another time we could meet up.  I knew I was unavailable for that time so I wrote back.  We texted each other back and forth for a while, and I found that STL was not so difficult to read.  I was even starting to substitute my own proper spelling for the trendy mistake-ridden language of the "hip" (something I rarely do in English).  This is something that is never taught in Spanish classes, but is nonetheless a very important part of becoming fluent.  Therefore, I propose that Syracuse University offer a class in STL for students who actually want to master the language.  The homework assignments should be to read and translate tweets in Spanish, and the exams should be to text the professor what you did the night before.

Would anyone else like to take this class?