What is "textspeak"

n. (context informal English) Any of a number of different measures of abbreviation used to shorten the length of text messages, such as eliding vowels, forgoing the use of punctuation, representing “you” and “your” as “u” and “ur”, using “da” (or, rarely “t’”) in place of “the”, and so on. “Textspeak” is often abbreviated to “txtspk” for that very motive, or for humorous, self-referential effect.