Neither is it particularly new in French surely, I remember a trip to Paris about 10 years ago when it took me ages to finally realise why all the video shops had "K7" The Oxford English Dictionary has an interesting article on the French variations used in SMS messaging.
The "real" spelling of braai is, well, braai. So even that has been SMS-ized.
Fascinating.
I've never heard robot used anywhere else, but I've never been to NZ. Most of the SAfricanisms I know of are pretty limited to SA and maybe Namibia -- like a bakkie would just be a pickup truck in Zim.
My favorite was always the way they use the word now, in that it doesn't actually mean now. If I say, I'll do it now, it means I'll do it later. Just now is still later, but a little sooner than now. And now now means the soonest of all, but still probably not right now as we'd understand it.
