Greeklish/Greenglish: The Advent and Popularization of an e-Language through Social Networking, Social Media and Telecommunication Technologies
Andrew Laghos, Sophia Masoura, Athina Skordi

Abstract
The purpose of this research was to investigate a recent phenomenon of the written Greek Language which appears when human communication occurs through social media and other digitally-mediated communication technologies. Greeklish, the Greek Language written using Latin characters, is said to have begun when Short Message Service (SMS) became available on mobile phones. The initial reasoning was that most of the phones came already setup in the English language, the Greek language option was not always available, and/or the switch between the languages took too many steps. The objective of this study was to find out the extent of the use of Greeklish in our society today through a case study and comparisons with other studies. Results show a very high use of Greeklish in all cases where technology was involved, while conclusions attribute this to be due to a conscious decision for convenience rather than just a technological constraint.

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