About

DoggoLingo, also known as "Doggo-Speak," is an internet language, lexicon and slang terminology used to describe the actions and behaviors of dogs (though sometimes cats and other animals are included) from their own perspective as internal dialogue or spoken word, often with onomatopoeia. The expression started within online communities as part of a trend to create quirky names for dog behavior and shares many similarities to LOLcats and other early internet misspellings of animal wordings.

Origin

The exact origin of the term being coined is somewhat unknown, but "doggo" was first used on the now deactivated Facebook page Ding de la Doggo back in 2014. After the creation of this page, doggo memes then became a trend on Reddit and Imgur throughout 2015, seen in multiple albums hosted on the website. An example of this can be found on Imgur^[1] uploaded by user awkwardseaturtle on December 16th, 2015 (example seen below). This particular meme called Stop It Son, You Are Doing Me A Frighten dates back to November 8th, 2015, from iFunny user Watimoro, and is thought to have aided in the spread of the early formations of Doggolingo.

Though these memes from 2015 are considered among the first examples of Doggolingo used in imagery, the term itself is thought to have surfaced sometime in 2016. An article on Medium^[2] published by Shirley Lee on February 2nd, 2017, covers the early formation of this lexicon in extensive detail, attributing the creation of the term to the Facebook^[3] group Dogspotting and to the Twitter^[4] account WeRateDogs.

Spread

In 2017, the term used to describe this internet language was covered by numerous media outlets attempting to explain the strange phenomenon. An article published by NPR^[5] on April 23rd, 2017, titled "Dogs Are Doggos: An Internet Language Built Around Love For The Puppers" covers this trend and includes several examples of memes that helped propel the language into the mainstream. One of these memes is the famous video of Gabe the Dog called "Careless Bork" (shown below, original video blocked due to copyright) that is thought to have popularized the term "bork" from the Doggolingo lexicon.

On July 23rd, 2017, Redditor^[6] chickencombo13 posted to the r/expanded_doggo sub seeking help with cataloging the many terms from the online language and serves as one of the oldest collections of words now considered a part of the lexicon.

The term "Doggo-Speak" was first added to Urban Dictionary^[7] by user Slartibartfastlemon on August 17, 2017, under the definition "Doggo-Speak or Doggolingo is a language used frequently across the Internet. It is used to describe the thoughts, feelings and actions of dogs in a cutesy way. Doggo-speak is heavy on onomatopoeias like bork, blep, mlem and blop and ever-expanding."

A video series from the YouTube channel Lucidchart, originally published on May 22nd, 2017, covers Doggolingo in two parts and now has over 3.7 million views on the first upload and 2.1 million on part 2 (seen below).

An entry on Wikipedia was created for Doggolingo on February 26th, 2018, which describes the internet language as "a dog's own idiom, and is presented as what humans have long believed goes on in the canine brain."

Associated Terms and Phrases

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External References