Dushanbe, Tajikistan
As the digital environment transforms the Tajik language, it turns into a new hybrid functional style that diverges from literary standards. The article describes the graphical evolution of digital Tajic, as well as the Russian-Tajik code switching in online comments in social networks. Based on digital ethnography and discourse analysis, the author compares the actual online usage with the norms codified in the Tajik National Corpus. The Tajik net-speak is examined from the perspective of the law of least effort (Zipf’s law). It demonstrates an obvious typological parallel with the digital erratives of Russian online communication known as "Olbanian language" or "Scumbags’ slang". The graphical deviations from standard Tajik include vowel reduction, with readability maintained by the consonantal frame. These violations are systemic, driven primarily by technological factors. Russian borrowings are integrated into the agglutinative matrix of the Tajik language via the mechanisms of morphological adaptation and code-switching strategies. Virtual communication legitimizes dialectal forms, transforming them into a sociolect, which reflects the high vitality of the language in the digital age.
Internet discourse, Tajik language, social networks, code-switching, errative, graphical reduction, pun, Russian borrowings
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