Pig Latin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Pig Latin is a game of alterations played on the English language game. To form the Pig Latin form of an English word the initial consonant sound is transposed to the end of the word and an ay is affixed (Ex.: "banana" would yield anana-bay). The purpose of the alteration is to both obfuscate the encoding and to indicate for the intended recipient the encoding as 'Pig Latin'. The reference to Latin is a deliberate misnomer, as it is simply a form of jargon, used only for its English connotations as a 'strange and foreign-sounding language'. The origins of Pig Latin are unknown.

Contents

[edit] Use

Pig Latin is mostly used by children for amusement or to converse in perceived privacy from adults or other children. A few Pig Latin words, such as ixnay [1](nix), amscray [2](scram), and upidstay (stupid), have been incorporated into English slang.[citation needed]

[edit] Rules and variations

The usual rules for changing standard English into Pig Latin are as follows:

  1. In words that begin with consonant sounds, the initial consonant or consonant cluster is moved to the end of the word, and "ay" is added, as in the following examples:
    • beasteast-bay
    • doughough-day
    • happyappy-hay
    • questionestion-quay
    • starar-stay
    • threeee-thray
  2. In words that begin with vowel sounds or silent consonants, the syllable "ay" is added to the end of the word. In some dialects, to aid in pronunciation, an extra consonant is added to the beginning of the suffix; for instance, eagle could yield eagle'yay, eagle'way, or eagle'hay.[citation needed]

Transcription varies. A hyphen or apostrophe is sometimes used to facilitate translation back into English. Ayspray, for instance, is ambiguous, but ay-spray means "spray" whereas ays-pray means "prays."

[edit] Other languages

In Bernese German, a variety of Pig Latin called Mattenenglisch was used in the Matte, the traditional working class neighborhood. Though it has fallen out of use since mid 20th century, it is still cultivated by voluntary associations. A characteristic of the Mattenenglisch Pig Latin is the complete substitution of the first vowel by i, in addition to the usual moving of the initial consonant cluster and the adding of ee.

The Swedish equivalent of Pig Latin is Allspråket, which uses the same or similar rules but with the suffix "-all". Additionally, the Swedish language game Fikonspråket ("Fig language") is similar to Pig Latin. In Fikonspråket, speakers split each word after the first vowel, switch places of the two parts, put "fi" before the second part and "kon" after the first part. The word "kallingar" (underpants) thus translates to "fillingar kakon". The word "fimp", meaning cigarette stump, originated from Fikonspråket ("stump" = "fimp stukon").

French has the loucherbem coded language, which supposedly was originally used by butchers (boucher in French).[citation needed] In loucherbem, the leading consonant cluster is moved to the end of the word (as in Pig Latin), and then an l is added to the beginning of word, and a em to the end of the word

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

  • Barlow, Jessica. 2001. "Individual differences in the production of initial consonant sequences in Pig Latin". Lingua 111:667-696.
  • Cowan, Nelson. 1989. "Acquisition of Pig Latin: A Case Study". Journal of Child Language 16.2:365-386.
  • Day, R. 1973. "On learning 'secret languages'." Haskins Laboratories Status Report on Speech Research 34:141-150.
  • Haycock, Arthur. "Pig Latin". American Speech 8:3.81.
  • McCarthy, John. 1991. "Reduplicative Infixation in Secret Languages" [L'Infixation reduplicative dans les langages secrets]. Langages 25.101:11-29.
  • Vaux, Bert and Andrew Nevins. 2003. "Underdetermination in language games: Survey and analysis of Pig Latin dialects." Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting, Atlanta.

[edit] External links

Personal tools