Miguxês

Miguxês (Portuguese pronunciation: [miɡuˈʃes] or [miɣuˈʃeʃ]), also known in Portugal as pita talk or pita script (pronounced [ˈpitɐ]), is an Internet slang of the Portuguese language, commonly used by mostly Brazilian teenagers in Internet and other electronic media, such as messages written in cell phone.

Brief history

Its name derives from miguxo, a corruption from amiguxo, turn a term used for amiguinho, or "buddy" in Portuguese. This sociolect of Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese brings possible simplifications in the grammatical structures, since the vehicles in which miguxês is used are nearly universally colloquial, often space delimited (such as SMS messages, instant messengers or social networks). It also tends to have "simpler" orthography in comparison to standard Portuguese orthography, which leads to the most strong criticism to it (miguxês without its common alternative spellings is associated with just normal Internet and/or youth slang).

There are identitarian and orthographic differences between the so-called leetspeak, miguxês, tiopês and internetês — Brazilian Portuguese for netspeak, which is by far the one that most closely resembles standard Portuguese —, all common sociolects found in the Portuguese-speaking digital network community, the three latter ones created in it.