Is the Internet causing German to lose its Capitalization?

[minckster]

I'm wondering if English-dominance on the internet is causing German to lose its capitalization of all nouns. What about the ß ("ess-zett") turning into a double s everywhere?

The reason I ask is that I noticed a post in English on another forum using unusual capitalization. At first I figured the poster is young (WhAt'S uP with YoUnG'uNs' OdD capItaLiZaTiON!?), but then I noticed that he capitalized all of the nouns. And sure enough, he's posting from Germany.

personally, after years of reading IMs, i've become very used to all-smalls. german in all smalls would still seem odd though.

[Cat]

What about the ß ("ess-zett") turning into a double s everywhere?

There was a spelling reform which eliminated many (but not all) occurrences of the ß.

[texanpenguin]

I don't think you're wrong, but there's a total lack of capitalisation in most languages online. English is slaughtered daily on forums and blogs; it stands to reason that the same thing would be occurring in German.

People are lazy; it's one of the few universal truths :P.

[limike28]

I wouldn't say that language is being slaughtered. Language, written and spoken, is a living, ever evolving, entity. These are just the most recent changes.

[Esquilinho]

Well, if you'd live in Portugal you'd see what language slaughter is.

Here there are more cell phones than people. One of the consequences of this is that SMS messages have become a real plague, specially among teenagers. They are so used to sending SMSs in that sort of condensed language (they practically eliminated vowels from almost every word…) that now they write like that everywhere!!!

[davebz]

I don't think that grammar is just an internet problem. Here in the US, our education system is taking a back seat to other useless tripe. I live in Boston and let me tell you, the stuff coming from our youth is just atrocious. I've read about kids literally butchering English to the point of near expulsion from school. Not only is their grammar and written language bad, but their spoken language is even worse. I AM DISGUSTED BY IT!

[fryke]

While I see people use "de-capitalized" German online and certainly in text messaging on mobile phones, it certainly hasn't happened in the "real world". There was talk about making German similar to English in that aspect when the reform came, but it wasn't really considered just yet. I guess it'll come one day, though.

[Ferdinand]

I live in Austria and obviously chat in german to my friends. And yeah, capitalization is like never used in nouns, names etc. So you could say people are lazy (think of all the short-cuts, that were made up for chatting, lol, brb etc).
Ferdinand