Kanye West Kim Kardashian
Kim and Kanye: She said ... or did he say? REUTERS/Danny Moloshok

Linguistics experts are convinced that recent abrasive tweets from Kim Kardashian defending her recent controversial nude selfie were actually written by her husband Kanye West.

It comes as Kardashian has become embroiled in a fierce exchange of words defending the image of her post-pregnancy body against critics.

The selfie, taken in her bathroom, sports the caption: "When you're like I have nothing to wear LOL."

Bette Midler, Piers Morgan, Chloe Moretz and Pink (among others) have criticised the 36-year-old reality star for setting a bad example for young women and sending a dangerous and denigrating message that females are all about sex and no brains.

"I truly hope you realise how important setting goals are for young women, teaching them we have so much more to offer than just our bodies," wrote Moretz.

Kim has snapped back accusing critics of sexist "slut shaming", and saying she is proud of her body and "empowered" by her sexuality.

But now forensic linguistics professors Rob Leonard of Hofstra University in New York and his associate Juliane Ford have told the New York Daily News that some of those angry responses were likely to have been composed by Kardashian's husband, Kanye, not Kim, because of the use of language.

West's use of the word "s**t," the distinct way Kim and Kanye each use the word "hey", how they treat hashtags, and how they write "Twitter" all put West's fingerprints on the tweets, the experts says.

One of "Kim's" tweets, for example, tells Piers Morgan that he is "on some Ashley Madison-type s**t", referring to the Ashley Madison online dating site.

"Kim doesn't appear to use 's**t' in any of her tweets, whereas Kanye does, and in the same way, essentially [to mean] 'stuff' or 'things,'" explained Leonard.

In addition, the tweets start with a salutation "hey," to an individual, just as many of Kanye's — not Kim's — do. Kim only uses "hey" when referring to a group like: "Hey guys."

And as for hashtags, "Kim's are always either #ALLCAPS or #CapitalizeEveryWordNoMatterWhatItIs, whereas Kanye is either #ALLCAPS, or #nocaps or #Onlythefirstwordcapped," Leonard said.

Finally, in the nasty tweets, the word "Twitter" was always spelled with a small "t," just as Kanye does, while Kardashian always spells it with a capital "T."

However the revelations are not likely to be a big surprise for those who follow West and Kardashian on Twitter. Several readers have already accused Kanye of hacking Kim's account because they recognized that the language was unlike hers.

Kim responded with a strongly-worded tweet which Leonard says did actually come from her.