A newly developing dialect whereby the speaker can convey a lengthy or complicated thought by abbreviating phonetically or through the use of substitutive letters, numerals and characters. Most of the time this dialect is only used in a situation where there is limited space (such as in an anline video game, where you can only write one line at a time) or when using a cell phone to send messages because the alphanumeric entry process makes writing complete words/sentences impractical. Text speak also includes the use of short-word slang as well. These words are almost always either just a few letters long or occasionally can be longer if a modifying prefix is used to make a whole new word.

Oddly enough, this new dialect has only a written form, as any attempt to speak it out loud is both impractical and unusually difficult, despite the fact that all the specifics are words and phrases used in everyday speech.
The most difficult thing about learning textspeak is developing a sense of nuance. Since it is impossible to use body language, voice inflection, pitch or tone nor can you make eye contact, other compensatory measures have been taken to fill in these communicative gaps. Typing in all capitals is considered shouting and using quotes is giving emphasis to a particular word. Going through the effort to actually type an entire perfect sentence usually indicates that the writer considers the thought to be an important one and most people do pay better attention to these....

a language started by a group of kids in the Michigan scene
it originated in the 248 area and is slowly moving into 586 and 734 area.
it was made to be an inside joke(wouldnt be on UB if it still was) so that friends could say things about other people in front of them and only a select few would know what was being said.
sadly this has slowly been spreading and is being used less and less by the originators in fear that they might be understood while speaking in there foreign tongue.