Congruence between SMS Language and the Standard Persian

These days cell phone, as the modern instrument has various, cheap, and user-friendly accessories and possibilities. As a result SMS is now one of the most important media used in different situations. In this study, the SMS was analyzed from a linguistic point of view. Using the content analysis method, the grammatical and semantic congruence of the short-messages with standard Persian was examined. Furthermore, the SMS content (quotations, love messages, empathy and greetings, ironies, and jokes) and language (Persian, English, Pinglish) were studied. For this purpose, 1795 SMSs were received and analyzed during the first half of 2007. The analysis and comparison of the SMSs showed that there is still no specific, uniform language used in their writing. The results showed that though the general tendency is to write in Persian, many SMSs are written in Pinglish.