This week we’re starting a new blog series called “The Origin of …” In it, we’ll be discussing the origin of a new word each week, including it’s translations or adaptations in other languages. We begin the series with a word that has become widely recognized among Internet parlance in a short amount of time: hashtag.

Going Viral

Most people recognize the hashtag (#) as a symbol used on Twitter to introduce a topic or conversation so that other Twitter users may search for, follow and contribute to the conversation. Of course now it is so popular that it’s not uncommon to see the symbol pop up on other social networks as well, but without the corresponding search function. Yet the hashtag was not an original creation from Twitter’s founders. The concept was originally thought up and given its ubiquitous symbol by a user experience designer working on Google+. That designer, Chris Messina, pitched the idea to Twitter’s guys in August of 2007 as a way to organize groups on the social network, giving him the nickname “hash godfather.”

Some reports indicate that the first time the hashtag was actually used was in relation to the miraculous landing of Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in early 2009. Among the many tweets flying around in relation to the event which had temporarily taken over the country’s news cycles, one user included #flight1549 at the end of their tweet. After that it was picked up by others tweeting about the incident, and quickly went viral.

Hashtag in Other Languages

There is always the question of whether new technology terms will be translated into other languages, or simply adopted as they are. As is to be expected, the French government has chosen to introduce their own word meaning hashtag in French. That word, mot-dièse, is not a literal translation, but rather means word and sharp — as in the designation of pitch in music, represented by a symbol similar to the pound (or hash) sign but without its inclination to the right.

It should also be noted, however, that not all French-speaking countries follow the lead of France when it comes to language developments. In francophone Quebec, Canada, for example, they prefer the term mot-clic.

But just as the French have done what they usually do — declare a new word to avoid adopting the English term — Spanish speakers have also done what they usually do in these situations. That is, they adopt the word with slight variations in spelling and pronunciation, effectively making it their own. Other words related to Twitter stand as examples of this: tuit (tweet), tuitear (verb of “tweet”), tuitero (a person who tweets), etc. In the case of hashtag, the literal translation would be etiqueta de almohadilla. And while this Spanish phrase is used in some areas, others choose to simply go with the original English term, adapting it to their own accent. As with French, it just depends on the region or the individual.