Im a fluent English speaker among other Latin and Germanic based languages and whenever I read older works, even older newspapers, I notice that words aren't as abbreviated.

One common example is acronyms. You didn't see "UK" written down a lot. It would be "Britain" or "England" or "United Kingdom", etc...

Another example of a common acronym (in American English at least) is "asap" (as soon as possible) and "OG", "USB", "TMI", "PDA", "ID", etc...

But acronyms are a very easy and pragmatic form of abbreviation.

You also have contractions (can't, don't, gonna, wanna, etc..."

There is also diminution of words; "collab", "merch", "fridge", "zoo", "vibe", etc...

I ask this for curiosity because in many other languages, this practice of abbreviation isn't very common. They would say "collaboration", "merchandise", "refrigerator", "zoological garden", "vibration", etc...

Why does the English language have this sort of 'instinct' for abbreviation? Is this a recent phenomenon?